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BV  638  .B88  1911 
Butterfield,  Kenyon  L.  1868 

1935. 
The  country  church  and  the 

rural  Droblem 


THE    COUNTRY    CHURCH 
AND  THE  RURAL  PROBLEM 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO.  ILLINOIS 

Bgents 
THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

NEW    YORK 

CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON    AND    EDINBTTRGH 


The  Country  Church 
and  the  Rural  Problem 


The  Carew  Lectures  at  Hartford 

Theological  Seminary 

1909 


By 


KENYON  L.  BUTTERFIELD 

President  of  the  Massachusetts  Agricultural  College 
Member  of  the  Commission  on  Country  Life 


V 


JUN   r,  191 


The  University  of  Chicago  Press 
Chicago,  Illinois 


COPTKIGHT  1911  By 

The  University  of  Chicago 


All  rights  reserved 


Published  February  1911 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


INTRODUCTION 

The  country  church  faces  a  crisis.  The  agri- 
culture of  the  nineteenth  century  was  indi- 
viduaHstic,  extensive,  even  exploitative,  and 
only  toward  the  close  of  the  period  developed 
highly  organized  commercial  aspects.  Dur- 
ing the  present  century  American  agriculture 
promises  to  be  put  upon  an  intensive  and 
scientific  basis,  co-operation  will  begin  to  super- 
sede individual  bargaining,  and  the  welfare  of 
the  rural  community  instead  of  the  profit  of 
the  individual  farmer  will  be  more  and  more 
the  point  of  departure  in  all  discussions  and 
movements  for  rural  betterment. 

The  church,  too,  as  it  served  the  farming 
classes  has  been  individualistic  in  its  appeal. 
Its  work  has  been  one  of  extension;  it  has 
marched  to  the  frontier  with  the  frontiersman. 
It  has  even  been  exploitative  of  denomina- 
tional pride  and  power.  Undeniably  it  has 
done  a  great  work.  It  has  saved  rural  life 
for  moral  and  spiritual  ends. 

But  the  country  church,  with  occasional 
local  exception,  is  not  responding  to  the  de- 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

mands  which  the  new  type  of  agriculture  and 
country  life  is  making  upon  spiritual  forces, 
nor  to  the  new  social  point  of  view  that  regards 
the  rural  problem  as  a  unit.  Under  the  old 
view  the  church  had  a  distinct  mission,  to  save 
souls,  a  mission  apparently  unrelated  to  the 
industrial  or  social  conditions  environing  those 
souls.  We  see  now  that  the  rural  problem  is 
one  question,  with  several  notable  aspects. 
These  aspects  are  not  unrelated  to  one  another, 
but  are  correlated.  One  of  these  aspects  is  the 
religious,  or  spiritual.  The  church,  as  the 
guardian  of  the  religious  life,  thus  plays  a  part 
in  a  movement  larger  than  itself. 

We  come  then  to  the  principle  that  the  church 
is  vital  to  the  solution  of  the  rural  problem,  be- 
cause the  things  the  church  stands  for  are  vital 
to  a  permanent  rural  civilization.  Church  and 
industry  are  intimately  bound  together.  The 
rural  church  cannot  thrive  for  long  unless  the 
agricultural  business  thrives.  But  on  even 
higher  grounds  we  see  that  the  same  principle 
applies.  The  church  is  but  a  means  to  an  end. 
It  is  a  servant  of  human  welfare.  In  so  far 
as  business  prosperity,  education,  social  life 
make  for  human  welfare,  just  so  far  are  they 
allies  of  the  church. 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

The  crisis  in  the  country  church  consists  in 
the  question,  Has  it  the  power  to  meet  the 
new  demand,  so  utterly  different  from  the  old 
in  many  essential  phases,  although  the  same  in 
respect  to  the  abiding  needs  of  the  human 
heart  ? 

It  is  the  conviction  of  these  fundamental 
ideas,  namely,  the  unity  of  the  rural  problem, 
the  absolute  necessity  of  utilizing  the  church 
in  solving  the  rural  problem,  and  the  need  of  a 
new  point  of  view  on  the  part  of  the  church  if 
it  is  to  do  its  part  in  solving  the  problem,  that 
has  led  to  the  present  volume.  It  is  hoped 
that  it  may  be  an  encouragement  to  pastors 
already  in  the  rural  field  and  an  incentive  to 
virile  young  men  who  love  a  hard  but  great 
task,  and  indeed  may  be  of  interest  to  public- 
spirited  and  thoughtful  laymen  in  the  rural 
churches. 

It  may  be  well  to  say  that  this  book  com- 
prises a  series  of  lectures,  with  all  the  limita- 
tions as  to  illustrative  details,  scope,  and  volume 
that  such  a  lecture  course  involves.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  intended  to  be  an  exhaustive  treatise 
upon  this  new  but  vital  theme.  Nor  is  it 
designed  as  a  practical  guide  for  clergymen 
in  the  details  of  parish  work.     The  author  has 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

endeavored  merely  to  touch  the  most  signifi- 
cant aspects  of  the  problem  of  relating  the 
church  to  the  general  movement  for  rural 
betterment. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

I.  The  Rural  Problem i 

II.  The  Solution  of  the  Rural  Problem  34 

III.  The  Task  of  the  Country  Church    .     .  67 

IV.  Difficulties  and  Suggestions      ...  95 
V.  The  Call  of  the  Country  Parish      .     .  131 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM 

IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  FOOD  SUPPLY 

When  Jesus  announced  to  hearts  overbur- 
dened with  the  cares  of  the  daily  toil  that  the 
birds  of  the  heaven  and  the  lilies  of  the  field 
are  the  patterns  for  our  industry,  we  can  hardly 
believe  that  he  intended  to  encourage  thrift- 
lessness  or  to  abolish  labor  for  bread.  He  was 
seeking  to  give  proper  proportion  to  human 
desires.  What  shall  we  eat?  What  shall  we 
drink  ?  Wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed  ? 
are  age-long  queries.  When  men  come  to  the 
full  life  of  the  spirit  and  when  human  justice 
is  supreme,  no  doubt  the  ideal  of  Jesus  will  be 
realized  and  these  questions  will  become  inci- 
dental or  at  least  subordinated  to  the  quest  for 
righteousness,  and  perhaps  will  be  answered 
with  less  of  sweat  and  moil  than  now. 

But  even  in  that  great  day  the  task  of  sup- 
plying these  needs  will  be  a  fundamental  labor, 
because  they  are  primal  needs.  The  food  sup- 
ply of  any  country  bears  an  intimate  relation 
to  the  development  of  all  its  industries.     And 


2  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

in  spite  of  the  qualifications  necessary  to  the 
original  Malthusian  doctrine  of  population,  it 
is  mere  truism  to  assert  that  ultimately  the  food 
supply  will  govern  with  an  iron  hand  the  ex- 
tent of  the  world's  population.  As  a  present 
problem,  the  question  of  food  supply  becomes 
necessarily  more  important  under  a  regime  of 
urban  life  and  of  highly  specialized  industries, 
both  of  these  accompanied  by  a  constantly 
rising  standard  of  living.  Under  such  con- 
ditions the  workers  not  on  the  land  demand 
abundant  food  at  a  moderate  price,  good  in 
quality,  in  great  variety,  and  regular  in  sup- 
ply. Not  only  their  physical  vitality  and 
their  efficiency  as  individual  workers,  but  their 
social  integrity  as  well,  are  tied  up  with  the 
food  question.  Of  course  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion of  manufactured  goods  is  determined  in 
large  part  by  the  cost  of  food.  Consequently 
the  whole  industrial  and  social  order  under 
modern  conditions  is  rooted  in  an  adequate 
food  supply. 

Now  the  chief  source  of  food  so  far  made 
available  is  the  soil,  carefully  tilled  and  util- 
ized for  the  growing  of  plants  either  for  direct 
human  consumption  or  for  food  for  animals 
which  in  turn  become  human  food.     The  men 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  3 

who  till  the  soil  then  are  responsible  for  large 
human  destinies.  They  bear  the  world  on 
their  shoulders.  How  well  they  perform  their 
task  is  a  matter  of  supreme  concern  to  the 
human  race  as  a  whole.  Living  in  a  region  of 
the  earth  where  the  food  supply  is  abundant, 
we  fail  to  appreciate  how  even  now  the  mere 
demand  for  common  daily  bread  presses  hard 
upon  the  world's  furrows.  In  our  own  land 
we  have  been  so  well  fed  that  we  have  given 
little  heed  to  this  problem.  But  today  there 
is  a  school  of  prophets  warning  us  of  the  need 
to  conserve  soil  fertility,  to  use  our  land  more 
intelligently,  lest  within  a  few  generations  we 
cannot  feed  and  clothe  our  own  increasing 
population.  Students  of  the  subject  assure 
us  that  statistics  indicate  already  a  slight 
decrease  in  the  ratio  of  production  to  popula- 
tion, in  recent  years,  in  the  United  States. ' 

The  Psalmist's  test  of  the  Lord's  favor  for 
Zion  lay  in  the  promise,  "I  will  abundantly 

^  Since  these  words  were  written,  the  question  of  higher  cost 
of  living  not  only  has  become  a  topic  of  general  discussion,  but 
has  had  important  political  consequences.  Economists  seem 
to  agree  that  the  increase  of  gold  supply  is  a  large  factor  in  in- 
creased prices;  without  doubt  our  system  of  distributing  farm 
products  is  expensive;  yet  the  question  of  production  of  food  as 
related  to  population  can  by  no  means  be  left  entirely  out  of 
account  in  the  discussion. 


4  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

bless  her  provision;  I  will  satisfy  her  poor  with 
bread."  In  any  event,  the  question  of  food 
supply  in  America  is  a  fundamental  human 
question.  It  is  essentially  a  rural  problem  be- 
cause the  people  who  furnish  the  food  are  the 
rural  people. 

AGRICULTURE  AS   A  NATIONAL  BUSINESS  ASSET 

Since  the  Civil  War  the  tremendous  growth 
of  American  manufacturing,  the  construction 
of  railway  lines,  the  organization  of  great  finan- 
cial concerns  have  captured  our  imaginations, 
and  we  have  come  to  think  of  the  agricultural 
industry  as  a  matter  of  decreasing  importance. 
This  view  is  especially  noticeable  in  southern 
New  England  and  several  other  eastern  states, 
where  the  cities  contain  most  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  where  huge  manufacturing  enter- 
prises have  concentrated.  Relative  to  our 
total  industry  agriculture  occupies  a  less  promi- 
nent place  than  it  did  half  a  century  ago.  But 
it  is  still  our  largest  single  industry,  having 
greater  real  capitalization,  larger  net  value  of 
product,  and  employing  more  workers,  than 
any  other  industry.  Moreover,  it  is  growing 
constantly  and  rapidly.  In  spite  of  occasional 
depressions  and  of  retrogressions  in  places,  it 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  5 

goes  steadily  forward.  The  value  of  farm 
property  and  the  farm  values  of  agricultural 
products  have  increased  materially  during  every 
decade  of  our  history  as  a  nation. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  aggregate,  but  also  in 
specific  relations  to  our  business  life,  that 
American  agriculture  is  significant.  For  in- 
stance, agriculture  furnishes  about  four-fifths 
of  the  raw  material  for  our  manufactured  prod- 
ucts. Directly  and  indirectly  it  prepares  a 
vast  freightage  for  transportation  companies. 
It  profoundly  influences  our  foreign  commerce. 
It  has  the  most  intimate  relation  to  our  great 
financial  institutions.  Its  success  or  failure 
bears  fundamentally  upon  general  business  con- 
ditions. One-third  of  our  workers  are  workers 
of  land;  they  are  also  consumers  of  manu- 
factures. Thus  from  whatever  angle  we  may 
view  it,  the  business  of  farming  in  America 
stands  out  as  a  great  essential  business — the 
greatest  American  business  in  fact.  Whether 
it  is  always  to  occupy  this  position  we  cannot 
say.  But  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  it  will 
always  be  one  of  our  largest  business  interests, 
because  of  the  pressure  for  food  caused  by  an 
increasing  city  population,  and  because  of  our 
heritage  of  rich  soil  and  varied  chmate. 


6  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

It  hardly  seems  necessary  to  remark  that  the 
implications  of  these  facts  involve  vital  eco- 
nomic questions.  You  cannot  admit  the  im- 
portance of  the  agricultural  industry  and  then 
quietly  ignore  it  in  movements  for  economic  ad- 
vancement and  adjustment.  Agriculture  looms 
up  therefore  as  a  prime  economic  interest  in 
American  progress. 

THE  SIGNIFICANCE   OF   THE  RURAL  POPULATION 

Of  course,  in  any  broad  discussion  of  a  ques- 
tion like  this  the  matter  of  ultimate  human 
welfare  is  of  far  more  concern  to  us  than  any- 
thing relating  to  wealth,  even  if  we  have  to 
admit  the  fundamental  character  of  the  eco- 
nomic questions;  though  in  a  true  analysis 
we  shall  hardly  draw  a  sharp  line  of  cleavage 
between  wealth  and  welfare.  For  it  is  a  sound 
tenet  of  ethics  that  we  must  acquire  wealth  on 
terms  not  subversive  of  individual  and  national 
character;  and  we  must  use  our  wealth  to  pro- 
cure food  for  the  spirit.  Nevertheless  it  be- 
comes convenient  to  leave  for  a  moment  the 
purely  economic  aspect  of  the  rural  problem, 
and  to  suggest  some  considerations  that  bear 
upon  its  social  side.  In  doing  so,  however,  it 
should  be  remarked  that  in  any  industry  so 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  7 

important  as  agriculture,  the  industrial  skill 
and  intelligence  and  the  economic  prosperity 
of  the  workers  must  not  only  have  a  vital 
relationship  to  the  industrial  welfare  of  the 
nation,  but  must  have  an  important  bearing 
upon  the  quality  of  the  people  of  the  entire 
nation. 

Mere  mass  is  not  a  final  test  of  significance. 
Yet  one  can  hardly  contemplate  the  fact  that 
nearly  forty  millions  of  our  American  people 
live  under  conditions  that  are  essentially  rural 
without  being  impressed  by  the  important  role 
those  millions  must  necessarily  play  in  our 
national  life.  There  is  no  likelihood  that  the 
total  number  of  rural  people  will  ever  be  less 
than  now.  Anything,  therefore,  that  affects 
their  characters,  fortunes,  intelligence,  power, 
modes  of  living,  ideals,  and  aspirations  must 
of  necessity  bear  important  relations  to  national 
welfare.  Certainly,  even  if  we  cannot  concede 
the  immediate  significance  of  rural  social  ques- 
tions as  compared  with  the  urgent  problems 
of  city  life,  we  must,  in  the  long  look  ahead, 
admit  the  tremendous  importance  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  permanent  status  of  so  large  a 
fraction  of  our  people  as  the  rural  element 
must  always  represent. 


8  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

Consider  for  example  the  matter  of  political 
power.     It    is    commonly    asserted    that    our 
cities  already  dominate  the  government,  and 
that  in  a  short   time  they  will  be  absolute 
masters  of  the  political  situation.     In  the  East, 
where  the  great  cities  have  grown  up  in  states 
with  a  comparatively  small  rural  population, 
this  may  be  true.     Yet  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  the  country  towns  in  states  like  Connecti- 
cut and  Rhode  Island  still  hold  power  out  of 
all  proportion  to  their  numerical  strength  and 
are  not  likely  to  relinquish  it  in  the  near  future. 
Furthermore,    under   our   system   of    election 
districts,  the  rural  vote  dominates  in  the  major- 
ity of  these  districts  in  the  election  of  mem- 
bers of  our  legislatures  and  of  the  Congress, 
and  in  many  other  districts  holds  the  balance 
of  power.     It  is  true,  and  perhaps  fortunate, 
that  this  great  power  is  rarely  used  by  the 
farmers    avowedly    for    class    purposes.     The 
potential  political  strength,   however,   of   the 
farming  class  is  such,  and  for  many  decades  to 
come  will  be  such,  that  the  political  beliefs 
and  political  honesty  of  our  rural  electorate 
become  a  matter  of  first  importance.     Great 
tides  of  economic  and  social  opinion,  so  far  as 
they  may  be  crystallized  into  legislation,  may 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  9 

find  their  ebb  and  flow  determined  in  large 
degree  by  the  character  of  the  rural  mind. 
Personally  I  am  convinced,  for  instance,  that 
state  socialism  will  never  appeal  to  our  farmers, 
so  long  as  the  majority  of  them  are  land- 
owners. Hence  their  economic  status  and  their 
political  perceptions  may  determine  the  final 
outcome  of  the  socialist  movement  in  this 
country.  The  recent  prohibition  movement 
was  largely  a  rural  movement. 

Inasmuch  as  the  open  country  still  furnishes 
and  always  will  furnish  an  army  of  recruits  for 
the  cities,  it  is  to  the  interest  of  these  cities  to 
see  that  the  general  level  of  intelligence  shall 
be  maintained  in  the  rural  communities.  So 
is  it  with  motives,  morals,  ideals  of  personal 
and  neighborhood  life. 

Thus  the  possession  by  the  rural  people  of 
popular  intelligence,  of  the  power  of  response 
to  new  ideals,  of  integrity  of  thought  and  char- 
acter, of  democratic  instincts,  of  appreciation 
of  new  economic  and  social  problems  becomes 
a  matter  of  first  concern  to  the  nation  at  large. 

IS  AGRICULTURE  DECLINING? 

I  have  already  said  that  there  is  no  likeli- 
hood that  the  number  of  rural  people  will 


lO  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

ever  be  less  than  now.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  relatively,  agriculture  as  an  industry  and 
the  number  of  persons  engaged  in  rural  pur- 
suits are  declining.  This  fact  has  led  some 
thinkers  to  the  apparent  conclusion  that  be- 
cause urban  population  and  industry  are 
eventually  to  be  the  more  dominant  features 
of  our  civilization,  rural  industry  and  rural 
population  must  become  minor  factors  in 
American  life.  Indeed  this  idea  leads  some 
to  suppose  that  the  temper  of  rural  life  is  to 
be  one  of  decadence.  Of  course  the  very  fact 
that  agriculture  as  an  industry  has  not  ad- 
vanced so  rapidly  as  manufacturing  is  a  cause 
for  some  concern;  although  the  business  of 
agriculture  as  a  whole  is  now  so  flourishing 
that  we  are  not  much  given  to  worry  about  it. 
What  causes  still  greater  concern  is  the  small 
return  that  comes  to  the  average  farmer  for 
his  labor  and  use  of  capital.  This  is  a  matter 
of  first  importance  in  a  business  so  large  as 
that  of  agriculture.  We  cannot  afford  to  have 
on  our  land  a  class  of  workers  generally  under- 
paid. But  let  us  dwell  for  a  moment  upon 
this  question  of  the  numbers  of  rural  residents. 
Josiah  Strong  states  that  the  tendency  city- 
ward  will   persist   because   fewer   men    than 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  ii 

formerly  are  needed  on  our  farms  to  produce 
the  food  required  by  the  city  dwellers.'  There 
is  no  doubt  about  the  general  principle;  but 
there  are  some  important  qualifications  to  it. 
In  the  first  place,  the  very  fact  of  city  growth 
makes  constantly  new  demands  upon  agri- 
culture. The  more  people  who  must  buy  their 
food,  the  greater  the  supply  needed.  Higher 
standards  of  living  also  require  higher  grades 
of  food  products.  True,  it  is  a  well-known 
economic  law  that  the  proportion  of  income 
spent  for  food  decreases  as  the  income  increases. 
But  the  total  amount  spent  for  food  does  in- 
crease with  general  growth  of  population;  be- 
sides, the  increased  expenditures  for  other 
things,  if  made  in  purchase  of  the  results  of 
productive  enterprise,  create  a  new  and  con- 
siderable, if  indirect,  demand  for  more  food, 
on  the  part  of  the  workers  thus  given  new 
employment.  Another  qualification  lies  in  the 
fact  that  while  the  product  per  agricultural 
worker  has  steadily  increased,  a  great  part  of 
our  enlarged  food  supply  in  America  has  come 
from  the  use  of  new  areas.  We  are  passing 
rapidly  out  of  this  condition.  While  millions 
of  acres  are  yet  to  be  redeemed  by  irrigation, 

^  The  Challenge  of  the  City,  35. 


12  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

and  other  millions  by  drainage,  the  era  of  great 
farm  land  expansion  has  passed.  Of  the  two 
processes,  it  is  vastly  easier  as  a  practical 
matter  to  increase  production  by  the  use  of 
new  land  than  by  better  use  of  the  old.  We 
have  then  a  rapidly  increasing  non-agricultural 
population,  coincident  with  a  check  in  the 
supply  of  new  agricultural  land.  More  scien- 
tific farming  is  to  be  the  outcome.  Each  farm 
worker  will  produce  more  than  now;  but  it 
does  not  necessarily  follow  that  less  than  the 
present  number  of  workers  will  be  needed  on 
our  farms.  In  fact,  it  is  probable  that  the 
number  of  agricultural  workers  and  conse- 
quently of  the  rural  population  will  slowly  but 
steadily  increase  for  an  indefinite  period  of  time. 

WHEREIN   IS   THERE   A   RURAL   PROBLEM? 

We  have  tried  to  show  how  important  are 
the  agricultural  industry  and  the  rural  popula- 
tion as  factors  in  our  American  business  and 
life.  It  is  now  pertinent  to  inquire  whether 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  "a  rural  problem.'' 
Are  there  tendencies  likely  to  injure  the  busi- 
ness or  to  render  the  people  less  efficient  ?  Are 
there  forces  at  work  which  may  affect  the  rela- 
tionship of  agriculture  to  national  life?    No 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  13 

doubt  there  are  special  difficulties  in  farming. 
Is  there  one  large  rural  question  ? 

There  are  several  ways  by  which  these  ques- 
tions may  be  approached.  We  might  discuss 
the  local  and  individual  problems  which  mani- 
fest themselves  in  ordinary  farm  communities 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  from  a 
sufficient  study  of  these  problems  present  a 
general  proposition  relative  to  the  agricultural 
situation.  We  might  take  up  the  main  defi- 
ciencies of  country  life,  in  some  orderly  fashion, 
and  discuss  their  meaning  and  correctives.  We 
might  attempt  a  purely  scientific  analysis  of  the 
problem  !in  its  fundamental  aspects.  I  have 
chosen  to  combine  all  of  these  methods  after  a 
fashion,  by  outlining  a  series  of  propositions 
which  it  seems  to  me  are  fundamental,  and  by 
illustrations  endeavoring  to  touch  the  most 
important  difficulties  that  beset  agriculture, 
whether  viewed  from  the  national  or  from  the 
private  point  of  view.  It  will  be  observed  that 
a  rough  grouping  of  these  propositions  brings 
them  into  two  main  classes — those  that  have 
a  bearing  peculiarly  industrial  or  economic, 
and  those  that  deal  with  the  larger  social 
aspects  of  country  life.  Then  I  purpose  to 
summarize   by   stating  in   specific   terms   the 


14  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

total  rural  problem  in  its  large  national  char- 
acter. 

I.  We  must  put  all  our  land  to  its  best  possible 
use,  as  rapidly  as  it  may  be  needed,  at  the  same 
time  conserving  its  fertility.  This  proposition 
seems  sufficiently  evident  without  argument, 
but  in  practice  it  is  not  simple.  It  is  of  course 
fundamental.  Eventually  the  world's  food 
supply  will  depend  on  the  faithfulness  with 
which  this  principle  is  applied.  Even  now 
there  is  need  that  it  should  be  invoked  in  some 
regions  of  our  country,  as  for  instance  in  New 
England.  New  England  should  produce  a  far 
larger  proportion  of  what  it  consumes,  not 
only  of  fruit,  poultry,  and  vegetables,  but  even 
of  meat.  Some  time  the  dominance  of  New 
England's  manufacturing  interests  may  come 
to  depend  upon  the  success  with  which  it  can 
buy  food  for  its  artisans  out  of  its  own  pocket 
as  it  were. 

There  are  perhaps  four  essentials  in  a  policy 
that  seeks  to  apply  this  principle  of  adapting 
the  land  to  its  best  use: 

I.  Adaptation  of  the  land  to  those  crops 
which  it  can  best  produce. 

In  a  rough  way  the  American  farmer  has 
done  precisely   this   thing.     The  wheat  belt, 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  15 

the  corn  belt,  the  cotton  belt,  the  fruit  belts, 
the  sugar-beet  belt  are  the  results  of  this  adapta- 
tion. In  the  future,  however,  an  approximate 
or  rough  adaptation  will  not  answer — it  must 
be  accurate,  scientific.  The  number  of  culti- 
vated crops  is  sure  to  increase  rapidly.  New 
varieties  will  demand  special  environment. 
Competition  between  lands  will  force  the  very 
best  use  of  each  acre.  Minute  conditions  of 
soil  texture,  slope,  drainage,  rainfall,  frost  line, 
sunshine  are  already  considerations  in  inten- 
sive farming,  and  will  dominate  more  and  more 
widely. 

An  interesting  illustration  of  the  need  of 
applying  this  principle  is  found  in  the  forestry 
movement  in  New  England.  These  rocky  New 
England  hills  are  hardly  excelled  in  America 
as  prolific  tree-growing  regions.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  about  the  possibilities  of  this  area 
for  scientific  forestry.  But  forest  trees  are  not 
the  only  trees  that  do  well  in  New  England. 
Fruit  trees,  notably  apple  trees,  grow  just  as 
well.  Moreover,  New  England  shares  with 
Michigan,  northern  New  York,  and  eastern 
Canada  the  distii;iction  of  producing  the  finest 
flavored  apples  in  America,  perhaps  in  the 
world.     Yet  New  England  produces  very  few 


l6  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

first-class  apples.  Here  is  a  chance  for  adap- 
tation that  should  not  be  neglected. 

When  we  say  that  all  land  should  be  put  to 
its  best  use  we  may  not  leave  out  of  account 
the  fact  that  beauty  has  its  place  in  land  adap- 
tation. We  are  yet  crude  in  our  ideas  of  public 
aesthetics.  But  in  attempting  to  adapt  the 
land  of  a  given  area  to  its  best  uses,  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  not  deliberately  plan  to 
make  that  area  beautiful  to  the  eye. 

2.  Adaptation  to  market  conditions. 

As  between  two  crops  to  which  any  area  of 
land  is  equally  well  adapted  by  reason  of  soil 
and  climate,  that  necessarily  will  be  chosen  which 
the  better  supplies  the  available  market.  The 
'^available  market"  is  an  elastic  term.  It  may 
be  the  adjoining  village,  the  distant  metropolis, 
a  foreign  country.  This  market  is  made  not 
merely  by  the  desire  of  certain  consumers  for 
certain  articles  of  food,  but  by  the  facilities  of 
transportation  from  farm  to  city,  by  the 
agencies  of  distribution  at  the  market  center, 
by  competition  of  distant  areas,  by  the  con- 
sumers' demands  for  color,  or  size,  or  packing, 
and  by  an  intangible  but  very  effective  factor, 
popular  notions  about  products.  To  use  again 
our  apple  illustration:    There  is  virtually  no 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  17 

satisfactory  market  for  New  England  apples, 
although  many  thousands  of  barrels  of  apples 
are  annually  grown  in  the  New  England  states. 
The  machinery  of  distribution,  developed  by 
the  enterprising  producers  of  the  Pacific  coast, 
has  co-operated  with  a  skilfully  educated 
public  sentiment  to  give  the  apples  of  the  far 
Northwest  the  first  place  in  the  best  retail 
apple  trade.  Color  is  more  easily  recognized 
than  quality.  Attractiveness  of  packing  plays 
a  large  role.  The  quantity  of  prime  fruit 
must  be  sufficient  to  invite  the  competition  of 
buyers.  New  England  apple-growers  must 
compel  the  public  to  make  a  new  estimate 
of  their  products  before  the  machinery  of 
the  market  will  be  effectively  available  for 
their  use. 

This  necessity  of  adaptation  of  areas  to 
market  demands  is  especially  strong  in  regions 
where  land  is  not  fitted  for  the  growing  of  the 
great  staple  crops.  We  have  then  the  need  of 
adaptation  both  to  the  general  and  the  special 
market.  It  should  be  noted  that  adaptation 
to  the  market  does  not  imply  acquiescence  on 
the  part  of  the  farmer  in  the  defective  organi- 
zation of  our  methods  of  distribution  of  prod- 
ucts.    There  are  actual  market  conditions  that 


1 8  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

must  be  met;  there  are  improvements  in  the 
market  that  may  be  made. 

3.  Adaptation  of  farm  practice  to  scientific 
methods  of  production. 

There  has  been  a  revolutionary  change  in 
the  best  farm  practice,  during  the  past  twenty 
years,  due  almost  wholly  to  the  results  of  the 
labors  of  agricultural  experiment  stations  and 
agricultural  colleges.  The  end  is  not  yet. 
Within  five  years  the  expert  corn-growers  of  the 
West  have  found  that  they  had  not  been  getting 
the  yields  that  they  might  easily  obtain  through 
careful  selection  of  the  seed  corn.  The  busi- 
ness of  dairying  has  been  entirely  changed 
since  the  invention  of  the  Babcock  test  for 
butter  fat  and  of  the  cream  separator,  and  the 
appreciation  of  the  function  of  bacteria.  Per- 
haps the  men  who  have  shown  the  very  highest 
degree  of  skill  in  adapting  their  methods  to 
the  new  knowledge  are  the  growers  of  vege- 
tables and  flowers  under  glass. 

This  principle  of  adaptation  to  modern 
scientific  knowledge  has  far-reaching  economic 
consequences.  Only  the  intelligent  and  the 
alert  will  quickly  take  up  with  the  new  things. 
As  these  demonstrate  the  value  of  the  new, 
others  will  fall  into  line.     Gradually  the  com- 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  19 

mon  practice  will  be  lifted  to  a  higher  level. 
But  meantime  the  alert  and  intelligent,  here  as 
elsewhere,  have  put  the  less  fortunate  at  a  dis- 
advantage. Moreover,  there  is  always  a  huge 
body  of  workers  of  the  soil  who  live  ''from  hand 
to  mouth, '^  use  merely  traditional  methods, 
and  are  forever  on  the  verge  of  failure.  The 
point  is  this:  The  intelligent  use  of  modern 
methods  of  farming  makes  it  increasingly  diffi- 
cult for  the  inefficient  farmer  to  keep  up  his 
relative  status. 

4.  Adaptation  of  farm  management  to  the 
most  approved  business  practice. 

Farming  for  so  long  a  period  was  a  non-busi- 
ness pursuit,  merely  a  means  of  providing  at 
first  hand  the  necessaries  of  life,  that  the  masses 
of  farmers  have  been  very  slow  to  organize 
their  operations  on  a  strictly  business  basis. 
Moreover,  in  many  cases  the  operations  are  so 
small  in  amount  and  so  simple  in  character 
that  the  need  for  business  methods  is  not 
always  apparent.  As  a  small  farmer  once  re- 
marked to  me,  ''I  have  forty  acres  of  land;  I 
produce  my  crops  by  as  intelligent  methods  as 
I  know;  I  sell  them  in  the  regular  market  when 
I  think  the  price  is  at  its  best.  I  usually  have 
a  surplus  left,  and  that  is  my  profit.     What  is 


20  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

the  use  of  keeping  a  complicated  book  account 
of  all  the  operations?"  One  can  readily  ap- 
preciate this  point  of  view.  Nevertheless,  agri- 
culture in  general  needs  to  be  put  upon  a  far 
more  business-like  basis  than  that  on  which  it 
rests  today. 

There  is  an  important  reservation  in  the 
application  of  this  general  principle  of  adapta- 
tion, namely,  that  the  land  shall  be  used  as 
rapidly  as  it  may  be  needed.  Practically  this 
matter  is  now  beyond  our  control.  It  takes 
care  of  itself.  But  if  it  had  been  recognized 
in  the  early  land  legislation  of  our  country  an 
era  of  serious  agricultural  depression  and  dis- 
content might  have  been  avoided.  It  is 
doubtless  true  that  the  land  policy  of  the 
government  is  responsible  for  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  the  West.  It  resulted  in  an  abundance 
of  cheap  food  at  a  time  when  manufacturing 
was  struggling  to  its  feet.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  we  endured  two  decades  of  overdevelop- 
ment of  land  use  which  not  only  brought  serious 
consequences  to  the  eastern  farmers,  but  which 
was  also  the  cause  of  the  ''farmers'  move- 
ments" of  the  period  from  1870  to  1893.  The 
homestead  laws  were  based  on  a  conception 
of  farming  perfectly  valid  when  they  were  first 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  21 

enacted — that  a  farm  is  a  self-supporting  home. 
But  unfortunately  the  great  demand  that 
"Uncle  Sam  should  give  us  all  a  farm"  reached 
its  height  at  a  time  when  agriculture  was  being 
put  on  a  commercial  basis  because  of  city 
growth  and  distant  transportation,  while  farm 
machinery  used  on  the  richest  virgin  soils  in 
the  world  brought  about  a  production  far  in 
excess  of  even  the  new  demand.  This  phenom- 
enon will  not  occur  again.  We  are  beginning 
to  see  the  era  of  land  scarcity.  Yet  the  prin- 
ciple is  important. 

Another  vital  consideration  is  that,  while 
land  must  be  put  to  its  very  best  use,  and  in 
fact  used  to  its  full  capacity,  it  must  be  treated 
in  such  a  way  that  its  natural  fertility  shall  be 
fully  conserved,  if  not  increased.  The  history 
of  land  has  been  largely  a  story  of  exploitation 
of  soil  fertility.  The  human  race  has  marched 
westward,  occupying  new  and  rich  lands  and 
leaving  behind  in  many  cases  desert  areas 
once  fertile.  The  changes  occurring  in  wheat- 
growing  areas  are  a  case  in  point.  Even  in 
America,  young  as  it  is,  this  reckless  exploita- 
tion of  soil  fertility  has  gone  on.  It  is  nothing 
less  than  criminal  to  handicap  future  genera- 
tions with  a  depleted  soil,  because  it  is  not 


2  2  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

necessary.  We  have  simply  been  wasteful 
and  foolish. 

We  have  stated  this  first  proposition  con- 
cerning the  use  of  land  at  some  length,  because 
it  is  so  fundamental.  Other  propositions  flow 
in  part  from  this  one,  and  are  of  much  signifi- 
cance, but  considerations  of  space  compel  their 
development  with  greater  brevity. 

II.  There  must  he  a  reasonable  financial  re- 
turn to  the  masses  of  workers  of  the  soil,  as  well  as 
opportunity  for  fairly  large  rewards  for  special 
skill.  It  is  not  enough  that  a  few  highly  in- 
telligent farmers  can  make  a  "good  living"  on 
the  farm.  It  is  necessary  that  as  a  class 
workers  of  the  soil,  of  fair  intelligence  and  skill, 
may  be  able  to  secure  a  decent  living — a  living 
adequate  for  the  maintenance  of  the  standards 
of  life  prevalent  in  the  nation  generally.  If 
this  condition  of  affairs  cannot  be  brought 
about,  the  farming  class  will  sooner  or  later 
sink  into  an  inferior  economic  status.  It  is 
stimulating  to  read  the  huge  figures  relating 
to  our  farm  values,  but  those  who  have  deter- 
mined the  returns  per  unit  of  our  farm  capital, 
and  the  rewards  to  each  farm  worker,  tell  us 
that  we  confront  a  situation  that  is  not  reas- 
suring.    Furthermore,    while    agriculture    can 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  23 

never  yield  the  large  rewards  that  sometimes 
flow  from  speculative  or  quasi-speculative 
enterprises,  it  is  necessary  that  the  men  of  force 
and  superior  intelligence  who  devote  themselves 
to  farming  may  secure  a  reward  in  some  degree 
commensurate  with  the  effort  expended.  If 
this  be  not  possible,  agriculture  must  constantly 
be  weakened  by  loss  of  leadership. 

III.  There  must  he  an  efficient  means  of  distri- 
bution of  soil  products.  This  is  by  no  means 
the  case  at  present  in  America.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  railways  have  wrought  wonders 
by  their  cheap  rates  for  long-distance  hauls, 
their  methods  of  refrigeration,  and  so  on.  But 
the  nearby  farmer  has  been  consistently  sacri- 
ficed in  the  interests  of  the  long  haul,  and  in 
fact  the  very  perfection  of  this  long-distance 
system  has  overstimulated  specialized  produc- 
tion for  a  far-away  market. 

But  far  less  efficient  than  the  transportation 
machinery  is  the  present  method  of  handling 
products,  particularly  specialized  products,  be- 
tween the  producer  and  consumer.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  farm  price  and  the  cost  to 
consumer  on  the  whole  range  of  plant  and  ani- 
mal products  is  altogether  too  great.  There  are 
too  many  middlemen.     As  a  class  they  obtain 


24  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

rewards  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  service. 
California  raisins  retailing  in  the  East  for  15 
cents  a  pound  give  a  gross  return  to  the  grower 
of  only  3  or  3^  cents.  The  use  of  his  land,  the 
labor,  his  own  services  as  manager  must  come 
out  of  the  three  cents  a  pound.  Twelve  cents 
go  to  a  group  of  people  who  have  a  vital  func- 
tion in  placing  the  raisins  where  they  are  needed, 
but  the  reward  is  disproportionate.  It  is  a 
clumsy  system.     It  must  be  vastly  improved. 

IV.  The  land  should  in  general  he  owned  by 
those  who  till  it.  This  is  not  to  be  construed 
to  mean  that  only  one  man  and  his  family  shall 
in  all  cases  work  a  single  farm.  We  must 
leave  room  for  an  enterprise  sufficiently  large 
to  utilize  some  additional  labor,  but  we  do  not 
desire  a  general  condition  of  even  resident 
landlordism,  implying  vast  areas  managed  by 
one  owner  and  worked  by  a  large  body  of  wage- 
earners.  Not  that  such  instances  should  not 
exist,  but  they  should  not  be  the  prevailing 
type. 

The  tendency  of  landownership  in  Europe 
has  been  toward  one  of  two  extremes — large 
holdings,  often  by  absentee  owners,  and  minute 
holdings  worked  largely  by  the  hand  labor  of 
the  owner  and  his  family.     It  has  been  shown 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  25 

that  efficient  farming  is  possible  under  both 
systems — the  industrial  results  may  be  good, 
though  they  are  not  always  so  under  the  land- 
lord system,  any  more  than  under  an  ignorant 
peasant  system.  But  as  a  rule  the  social 
results  of  either  plan  at  its  extreme  are  bad — 
worse  under  the  landlord  system  probably. 
Landownership  gives  community  interest  and 
is  vital  to  permanent  rural  civilization. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  question  of  foreign 
immigration  has  an  important  bearing.  If 
American  standards  of  living  are  to  prevail 
among  the  members  of  the  agricultural  class, 
there  is  little  danger  among  us  of  developing 
a  general  peasant  regime;  there  is  greater 
danger  of  unduly  large  holdings,  particularly 
in  the  rich  areas  of  the  middle  country  north 
and  south.  But  if  it  should  come  about  that 
hordes  of  peasants  from  abroad  should  settle 
upon  our  lands  more  rapidly  than  the  some- 
what sluggish  social  machinery  of  rural  life 
can  grind  the  grist,  American  standards  would 
be  superseded  by  lower  standards  and  a  system 
of  peasantry  would  shortly  be  inaugurated. 

Dr.  Max  Weber  of  Heidelberg  has  remarked,' 

^  See  Report  of  the  Congress  of  Arts  and  Science,  Universal 
Exposition  (St.  Louis,  1904),  VII,  745. 


26  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

with  reference  to  a  possible  contingency  here 
similar  to  that  which  Europe  has  faced,  that 

the  diminution  of  the  agricultural  operations  in  the 
wheat-producing  states  results,  at  present,  from  the 
growing  intensity  of  the  operation  and  from  division 
of  labor.  But  also  the  number  of  negro  farms  is 
growing,  and  the  migration  from  the  country  to  the 
cities.  If,  thereby,  the  expansive  power  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon-German  settlement  of  the  rural  districts  and, 
besides,  the  number  of  children  of  the  old,  inborn 
population  are  on  the  wane,  and  if,  at  the  same  time, 
the  enormous  immigration  of  uncivilized  elements 
from  Eastern  Europe  grows,  also  here  a  rural  population 
might  soon  arise  which  could  not  be  assimilated  by  the 
historically  transmitted  culture  of  this  country: 
this  population  would  change  forever  the  standard  of 
the  United  States,  and  would  gradually  form  a  com- 
munity of  a  quite  different  t5^e  from  the  great  crea- 
tion of  the  Anglo-Saxon  spirit. 

V.  The  social  strength  of  the  farming  class 
must  he  conserved.  It  is  vitally  important  in 
the  development  of  American  civilization  that 
a  class  of  people  numerically  so  great  as  our 
farmers  shall  maintain  standards  of  individual 
and  social  strength  consistent  with  our  civili- 
zation. This  may  be  expressed  as  the  need 
for  conservation  of  social  power,  and  is  made 
up  of  at  least  the  following  elements : 

I.  High    intelligence — sufficiently    high    at 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  27 

least  to  represent  average  American  life,  not 
only  in  general  qualities,  but  with  respect  to 
questions  of  business,  politics,  sanitation,  and 
community  life  as  a  whole. 

2.  Organizing  capacity.  No  large  class  of 
people  can  attain  its  full  development  in  a 
civilization  that  is  at  once  democratic  and  in- 
creasingly self-directing,  unless  it  shows  a  power 
to  combine  large  numbers  of  individuals  for 
both  class  ends  and  national  needs. 

3.  PoHtical  efficiency.  We  have  already 
dwelt  upon  the  present  political  influence  of 
the  agricultural  classes.  It  is  important  there- 
fore that  this  great  power  shall  be  exercised  by 
men  who  appreciate  the  significance  of  the 
vital  problems  of  the  age,  who  are  honest  in 
their  expression  of  opinion,  wise  in  the  choice 
of  their  political  representatives,  and  who  have 
the  mind  to  fulfil  their  obligations  as  voters. 

4.  Culture  and  refinement.  The  farming  class 
is  relatively  isolated,  and  will  always  be  more 
or  less  segregated  from  other  classes.  But  it 
would  be  unfortunate  if  the  time  came  when 
the  rural  man  or  woman  was  of  a  type  so  dis- 
tinctive as  to  be  out  of  harmony  with  our 
accepted  standards.  Rusticity  of  mind  or  of 
manners  must  not  be  a  feature  of  rural  life. 


28  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

5.  Active  and  healthy  moral  and  spiritual 
life.  This  point  of  course  needs  no  argument 
or  illustration,  but  gains  its  force  as  a  statement 
from  the  fact  that  under  rural  conditions  this 
need  may  require  special  direction  and  encour- 
agement. 

VI.  The  rural  community  must  he  served  by 
efficient  social  institutions,  adapted  to  the  pecul- 
iar needs  of  rural  life.  The  three  great  classes 
of  institutions  are  the  church  and  allied  agencies 
of  religion,  the  schools  and  other  means  of  edu- 
cation, and  the  voluntary  organizations  and 
co-operative  associations  for  various  ends.  All 
these  must  be  efficient  for  their  purpose,  de- 
veloped to  meet  the  special  needs  that  arise 
under  the  rural  conditions.  We  may  leave 
further  discussion  of  this  point  to  another 
chapter. 

VII.  A  clear  and  high  ideal  for  rural  com- 
munity life  must  he  developed  and  maintained. 
We  have  heretofore  allowed  a  laissez-faire 
policy  to  prevail  with  respect  to  a  general 
movement  for  the  betterment  of  rural  condi- 
tions. The  two  great  exceptions  to  this  state- 
ment, namely,  the  growth  of  the  great  farmers^ 
organizations  and  the  development  of  special 
educational  agencies  under  government  con- 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  29 

trol,  have  not  as  a  matter  of  fact  supplied  ade- 
quate ideals  for  the  reorganization  of  rural  life. 
We  need  a  new  vision  of  what  this  reorganiza- 
tion means.  We  need  a  picture  of  ideal  rural 
life  applicable  on  a  large  scale.  In  succeeding 
chapters  we  shall  have  occasion  to  review  this 
proposition  with  some  fulness.  Suffice  to  say 
here  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  after  all  the 
most  significant  need  in  rural  life. 

An  endeavor  has  been  made  to  name  as 
briefly  as  possible  the  reasons  why  there  is  a 
rural  problem.  A  little  study  of  each  one  of 
the  seven  propositions  just  laid  down  will  re- 
veal serious  defects  in  our  agricultural  indus- 
try and  community  life,  and  indicate  the  most 
important  steps  toward  amelioration.  Doubt- 
less a  more  complete  analysis  of  the  problem 
would  include  other  significant  considerations. 
But  all  these  questions  are  intrinsic  and  funda- 
mental. With  respect  to  them,  our  agricul- 
ture is  not  in  a  wholly  satisfactory  condition. 
There  undoubtedly  is  a  rural  problem. 

STATEMENT   OF   THE   ULTIMATE   RURAL 
PROBLEM 

You  will  observe  that  the  rural  problem  has 
been  described  by  a  series  of  propositions  which 


30  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

have  developed  both  defects  and  remedies. 
But  the  query  now  arises,  Is  there  not  some 
simple  statement  which  at  once  goes  to  the 
root  of  the  matter,  and  which  will  reveal  the 
real  unity  of  the  problem,  if  there  be  any  such 
unity?  It  is  precisely  to  this  end  that  the 
foregoing  discussion  has  been  directed.  To 
put  the  response  to  the  query  in  its  briefest 
form,  we  may  say  that  the  rural  problem  is 
to  maintain  upon  our  land  a  class  of  people 
whose  status  in  our  society  fairly  represents 
American  ideals — industrial,  political,  social, 
and  ethical. 

This  statement  at  once  brings  before  us  a 
picture  of  an  American  civilization  in  which 
the  special  problems  confronting  those  who 
till  the  soil  and  furnish  our  food  have  been 
worked  out  in  terms  of  class  efficiency  and  of 
national  welfare.  It  implies  that  the  rural 
question  is  an  organic  part  of  the  question  of 
our  national  life  as  a  whole.  It  signifies  that 
the  interests  of  the  city  itself  are  vitally  con- 
nected with  the  rural  welfare.  It  means  that 
everyone  interested  in  agricultural  progress 
must  grasp  this  underlying  philosophy  as  a 
directing  force  in  all  partial  movements  for 
improvement. 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  31 

I  desire  to  call  particular  attention  to  two 
further  implications  of  this  analysis  and  state- 
ment of  the  rural  problem:  First,  that  the 
industrial  factor  is  essential.  We  who  deal 
with  things  of  the  mind  and  spirit  need  espe- 
cially to  recognize  that  a  successful  agricul- 
tural industry  is  the  first  term  in  the  formula 
for  developing  class  power.  Second,  that  the 
ultimate  problem  is  by  no  means  wholly  one 
of  material  prosperity,  but  is  after  all  another 
phase  of  the  great  problem  of  human  welfare 
and  national  destiny.  Those  whose  task  it  is 
to  assist  in  improving  methods  of  agriculture 
and  those  actually  engaged  in  the  business  of 
farming  need  especially  to  recognize  that,  im- 
portant as  is  business  success,  it  needs  to  be 
transmuted  into  intellectual  and  moral  power 
and  eventuate  in  a  satisfactory  community 
hfe. 

May  I  close  this  discussion  of  the  rural  prob- 
lem by  two  important  statements  from  others 
— one  made  by  an  acute  student  of  city  life, 
and  the  other  by  a  body  of  men  who  have  had 
special  opportunities  for  study  of  the  rural 
question  in  its  broadest  aspects  ? 

Dr.  Frederick  C.  Howe  has  said'  that  the 

^  The  City,  the  Hope  of  Democracy,  9. 


32  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

coming  of  the  modern  city  '^has  destroyed  a 
rural  society,  whose  making  has  occupied  man- 
kind since  the  fall  of  Rome."  Even  so,  there 
still  remain  the  land  and  the  land-tiller. 
There  is  still  life  under  rural  conditions,  and 
there  must  always  be.  Thus  our  problem  is 
to  reconstruct  that  important  part  of  our 
civilization  which  is  still  rural  in  the  light 
of  a  new  civilization  that  is  to  be  domi- 
nantly  urban,  and  to  do  it  in  such  a  way 
that  the  two  types  may  blend  in  one  coherent 
American  society. 

The  Commission  on  Country  Life  states 
"the  underlying  problem  of  country  life"  as 
follows : 

The  mere  enumeration  of  the  foregoing  deficiencies 
and  remedies  indicates  that  the  problem  of  country 
life  is  one  of  reconstruction,  and  that  temporary 
measures  and  defense  work  alone  will  not  solve  it. 
The  underlying  problem  is  to  develop  and  maintain 
on  our  farms  a  civilization  in  full  harmony  with  the 
best  American  ideals.  To  build  up  and  retain  this 
civilization  means,  first  of  all,  that  the  business  of 
agriculture  must  be  made  to  yield  a  reasonable  return 
to  those  who  follow  it  intelligently;  and  Hfe  on  the 
farm  must  be  made  permanently  satisfying  to  intelli- 
gent, progressive  people.  The  work  before  us,  therefore, 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  gradual  rebuilding  of 


THE  RURAL  PROBLEM  33 

a  new  agriculture  and  new  rural  life.  We  regard 
it  as  absolutely  essential  that  this  great  general  work 
should  be  understood  by  all  the  people.  Separate  dif- 
ficulties, important  as  they  are,  must  be  studied  and 
worked  out  in  the  light  of  the  greater  fundamental 
problem. 


II 

THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  RURAL 
PROBLEM 

In  the  previous  chapter  an  endeavor  was 
made  to  reach  the  heart  of  the  rural  problem 
by  indicating  the  significance  of  agriculture  and 
country  life,  in  terms  of  the  food  supply,  and 
with  respect  to  agriculture  as  a  business  asset, 
and  the  importance  of  the  social  or  human  side 
of  the  question,  as  shown  by  the  part  which 
our  large  rural  population  inevitably  must  play 
in  our  national  civilization. 

The  real  character  of  the  fundamental  aspects 
of  the  rural  problem  was  developed  by  laying 
down  certain  propositions,  namely,  that  we 
must  use  all  our  land  in  the  best  possible  way; 
that  there  must  be  a  reasonable  financial  re- 
turn to  workers  of  the  soil;  that  there  must  be 
better  means  of  distributing  the  products  of 
the  soil;  that  the  land  in  general  ought  to  be 
owned  by  those  who  till  it;  that  the  social 
strength  of  the  farming  class  must  be  conserved; 
that  the  country  must  have  efficient  social 
institutions;    that  a  clear  and  high  ideal  for 

34 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  35 

rural  life  must  be  developed  and  maintained. 
And  finally  we  said  that  it  all  comes  to  this, 
that  the  total  rural  problem  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  to  develop  a  new  rural  civilization; 
to  build  up  and  maintain  upon  our  land  a 
class  of  people  whose  status  in  the  national 
life  fairly  reaches  American  ideals — industrial, 
political,  and  social. 

Our  task  in  this  chapter  is  to  attempt  the 
statement  of  those  general  principles  by  which 
the  problem  as  now  understood  may  be  solved. 
We  do  not  purpose  to  go  into  details  with 
respect  to  methods,  but  rather  to  enunciate 
those  main  considerations  which  must  govern 
in  the  working-out  of  rural  effort.  We  shall, 
therefore,  keep  in  mind  chiefly  the  ultimate 
aspects  of  the  problem ;  for  the  more  important 
local  and  immediate  questions — such  as  the 
prosperity  of  a  given  agricultural  community, 
the  labors  of  special  institutions,  and  the  devel- 
opment of  practical  means  of  neighborhood 
progress — will,  in  our  judgment,  find  their 
answers  in  the  appropriate  application  of  this 
large,  general  program. 

Let  it  be  said  at  the  outset  that  there  is  no 
panacea  for  the  rural  problem.  It  is  not  a  simple 
problem;   and  the  remedy  is  not  simple.     We 


36  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

do  not  offer  single  cures  for  special  difficulties. 
The  rural  problem  is  a  unit ;  its  various  aspects 
overlap.  We  are  not  to  forget  this  unity,  for 
that  is  the  starting-point.  So  when  we  come 
to  discuss  solutions,  we  are  to  remember  that 
the  different  principles  to  be  utilized  may  be 
worked  out  through  different  institutions. 
Thus  the  church  has  an  educational  function; 
the  school  has  a  character-building  function; 
yet  we  must  differentiate  between  the  two 
main  tasks  of  the  school  and  the  church.  This 
word  may,  however,  be  said:  that  inasmuch 
as  the  ultimate  problem  is  essentially  social, 
so  the  forces  to  be  utilized  for  the  direction 
of  rural  development  are  social.  We  must 
reach  the  mass  of  individual  farmers  through 
the  machinery  of  social  agencies.  We  cannot 
leave  the  problem  to  the  chances  of  merely 
individual  initiative.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
cannot  consciously  direct  all  the  forces  that 
are  to  determine  the  final  status  of  the  American 
farmer.  Even  if  we  clearly  perceive  the  goal, 
we  cannot  always  detect  the  great  currents 
that  are  carrying  us  toward  it.  It  is  not  within 
human  power  to  shape  the  channels  of  social 
evolution  with  the  skill  of  an  engineer.  The 
most  that  we  can  do  is  to  call  attention  to  the 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  37 

desired  ends  and  to  set  in  motion  those  forces 
within  our  control  which  we  think  will  most 
fully  enable  rural  society  to  reach  its  goal. 

The  main  agencies  or  principles  that  are  to 
be  utilized  in  the  solution  of  the  rural  problem 
may  be  classified  into  five  groups,  which  pre- 
sent genuine  needs,  and  to  a  large  degree  real 
deficiencies,  in  our  country  life.  They  are  as 
follows:  (i)  socialization;  (2)  education;  (3) 
organization;  (4)  religious  idealism ;  (5)  federa- 
tion of  forces. 

I.      SOCIALIZATION 

By   socialization   is   meant   in   general   the  / 
breaking-down   of    the  extreme  individualism .' 
which  exists  in  most  of  our  country  life  and  j 
is,  in  fact,  engendered  by  the  farmer's  mode  of  1 
living,  and  the  bringing-together  of  these  inde-  j 
pendent  individual  elements  into  a  more  coher- 
ent social  group.     If  I  were  asked  to  indicate 
the  main  difference  between  urban  life  and 
rural  life,  I  should  say  that  the  characteristic 
feature  of  city  life  is  the  congestion  of  popula- 
tion; while  the  characteristic  feature  of  country 
life  is  the  isolation  of  its  people.     This  simple 
distinction  is~Tundamental  in  its  sociological 
bearings.     In  the  country  the  farming  class  is 


38  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

largely  isolated  from  other  classes;  families 
are  in  a  large  measure  isolated  from  other 
families.  True,  isolation  in  its  psychical  and 
social  effects  is  a  relative  and  not  an  absolute 
condition.  Nevertheless  the  sparse  popula- 
tion of  the  country,  as  compared  to  that  of  the 
city,  is  responsible  for  the  main  features  of 
rural  life,  is  the  distinguishing  social  environ- 
ment of  the  rural  people,  and  is  consequently 
the  main  source  of  difference  between  rural  and 
urban  ideals. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  both  good 
and  bad  results  flow  from  this  isolation  of  the 
farming  people.  Undoubtedly  it  makes  for 
strong  individual  character,  for  independence 
of  thought,  for  initiative  and  self-reliance,  for 
the  development  of  the  meditative  habit  of 
mind,  for  a  certain  fearlessness  of  conventional- 
ities, and  on  the  whole  for  good  morals  and 
particularly  for  a  superior  family  life — nowhere 
else  is  family  life  so  educative  as  in  the  country. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  social  results  are  gener- 
ally bad.  It  is  difficult  to  get  farmers  to  work 
together,  because  they  have  so  long  worked 
separately.  They  are  suspicious  of  one  another, 
suspicious  of  their  own  leadership,  suspicious  of 
other  classes.     They  often  drift  out  of  the  cur- 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  39 

rent  of  the  world's  thought.  They  often  lack 
the  stimulus  of  the  best  leadership.  They  miss 
the  power  of  ''suggestion,"  and  consequently 
there  is  a  tendency  to  stagnate  socially.  Habits 
and  conventions  remain  fixed  and  stand  in  the 
way  of  progress. 

Thus  at  the  threshold  we  have  to  meet  this 
characteristic  fact  of  comparative  isolation  in 
a  way  to  save  what  is  good  in  it  and  to  obviate 
what  is  deleterious  in  it.  In  what  ways  may  we 
meet  it  ?  What  are  the  remedies  for  rural  con- 
ditions that  are  essentially  non-social?  We 
may  consider  four. 

I.  The  development  of  better  means  of  com- 
munication.— It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  the 
advantages  that  have  already  accrued  to  our 
rural  population  through  the  establishment  of 
general  free  rural  mail  delivery,  the  installation 
of  rural  telephones,  the  improvement  of  our 
highways,  and  the  building  of  interurban 
trolley  lines.  It  is  true  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
all  other  human  institutions,  there  is  always 
something  to  say  on  the  other  side.  In  some 
communities  rural  mail  delivery  has  kept  the 
farmers  from  coming  together  for  their  normal 
social  life  at  the  post-office  center;  in  some 
instances  the  rural  telephone,  under  the  party 


40  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

system  at  least,  has  provoked  a  prodigious 
interest  in  other  people's  business,  and  an 
equally  amazing  impoliteness  in  trying  to  find  it 
out;  the  past  few  years  have  put  a  premium  on 
reckless  automobile  speeding,  and  have  almost 
driven  the  farmers'  horses  from  the  improved 
highways;  up  to  the  present  time,  trolley  lines 
running  through  the  country  are  essentially 
interurban,  and  not  distinctively  rural  lines — 
that  is,  they  are  intended  to  serve  the  cities 
and  not  primarily  the  country  districts  through 
which  they  run.  But  in  spite  of  these  draw- 
ibacks,  the  general  tendency  of  all  these  new 
means  of  communication,  every  one  of  which 
has  developed  within  a  dozen  years,  has  been  to 
re-create  rural  life.  That  is  a  strong  phrase, 
but  it  is  not  an  exaggeration.  In  regions  where 
these  improvements  prevail  farmers  are  in 
touch  with  one  another  as  never  before.  From 
the  business,  from  the  social,  and  from  the  in- 
tellectual points  of  view,  the  pace  has  been 
quickened  with  advantage.  We  can  but  hope 
that  in  the  near  future  these  means  of  com- 
munication will  be  fully  developed  in  practically 
every  corner  of  our  agricultural  area. 

In  this  connection  a  word  should  be  said 
in  regard  to  theji^pnlf^t  system  as  a  means  of 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    41 

socializing  our  rural  people.  The  prevalence 
of  the  hanilet  system  in  some  European  coun- 
tries has  been  used  as  an  argument  for  the 
development  of  a  similar  plan  here.  In  our 
southland  the  hamlet  system  is  being  quite 
frequently  advocated  by  the  whites,  in  order 
to  secure  better  protection  of  their  families 
from  the  negroes  of  low  degree.  In  the  irri- 
gated sections  of  the  West,  notably  where  the 
Mormons  have  settled,  the  village  system  is 
a  characteristic  feature  of  agricultural  life. 
Even  in  some  parts  of  New  England  many 
farmers  live  in  the  smaller  villages.  By  some 
writers  a  general  adoption  of  the  hamlet  system 
has  been  advocated. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  some  advantages 
attached  to  the  rural  hamlet,  advantages  which 
are  obvious  enough  upon  the  surface,  and  which 
need  no  particular  elucidation.  Personally  I 
have  yet  to  be  persuaded  that  the  hamlet 
system  is  to  be  the  chief  means  in  America  of 
socializing  the  farming  class.  The  difficulty  of 
bringing  it  about  is  a  prime  consideration.  We 
started  on  the  other  tack;  it  will  take  a  long 
time  to  change.  Our  American  farmers  have 
perhaps  three  or  four  billions  of  dollars  invested 
in  farm  buildings,  most  of  these  buildings  being 


42  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

on  separated  farms.  The  task  of  transferring 
this  property  to  little  centers  is  a  gigantic  task. 
There  is  also  a  question  as  to  its  necessity. 
Will  not  the  proper  development  of  the  means 
of  communication  already  referred  to,  together 
with  more  energetic  social  institutions  and  more 
attractive  social  centers,  compass  the  results 
sought?  Moreover,  one  may  question  the 
desirability  of  this  solution,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  in  many  cases  the  existence  of  the  rural 
hamlet  does  seem  to  bring  about  ideal  condi- 
tions of  country  life.  In  some  instances  there 
is  evidence  that  while  a  rural  hamlet  tends  to 
socialize  the  people  it  also  tends  to  inefficiency 
in  the  management  of  farms.  Furthermore, 
the  family  life  of  our  farms,  under  normal 
conditions,  is  the  glory  of  our  country  life. 
Its  efficiency,  let  it  be  said,  is  due  in  part  to  a 
degree  of  isolation.  And  finally,  while  it  is 
hardly  fair  to  assume  that  the  hamlet  will 
develop  the  same  conditions  as  the  very  small 
city  or  the  village,  there  is  a  widespread  feeling 
that  the  average  boy  is  far  safer  morally  either 
in  the  country  or  in  the  large  city  than  he  is 
in  the  average  village. 

2.  Recreation. — The  closest  observers  of  rural 
life  are  quite  convinced  that  the  recreations  of 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    43 

the  country,  not  only  for  children  but  for  young 
people  and  for  adults  as  well,  are  grossly  in- 
adequate. Farmers  themselves  are  as  a  rule 
apparently  satisfied  with  the  situation,  and, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  one  should  take  a  census  of 
the  recreations  of  the  rural  people,  a  long  list 
could  be  named.  But  it  would  also  appear ,' 
that  recreation  on  the  whole  is  inadequate  inj 
amount,  in  variety,  and  in  quality;  that  the 
country  people  do  not  take  sufficient  time  for 
play;  and  that  such  recreations  as  exist  are 
unorganized  and  are  not  adapted  to  develop  the 
best  phases  of  character.  There  are  notable 
exceptions  to  these  general  truths,  and  there 
are  wide  variations  of  conditions,  but  in  general 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  rural  life  is  lacking  in 
recreation. 

The  dearth  of  wholesome  amusement  for 
children  and  youth  is  particularly  noticeable. 
The  movement  for  organized  and  educative 
play  for  city  children  may  well  have  its  counter- 
part in  the  country.  Of  course  spontaneity, 
native  interest,  local  tradition,  and  the  initiative 
of  child  and  youth  are  not  to  be  submerged 
in  a  formal,  machine-like  organization,  in  the 
countr>^  any  more  than  in  the  city.  The  school 
and  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations 


44  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

must  be  relied  upon  very  largely  for  the  develop- 
ment of  suitable  recreation  for  the  young,  and 
the  native  rural  institutions,  such  as  school, 
Grange,  church,  and  local  club,  supplemented 
at]  times  by  some  help  from  outside,  must 
furnish  adults  with  their  recreations. 

3.  The  enrichment  of  woman'' s  life. — There 
are  thousands  of  farm  women  who  live  a  normal, 
happy  life.  The  popular  impression  that  the 
terrible  isolation  of  farm  life  breeds  an  undue 
amount  of  insanity,  especially  among  the 
women,  is  not  sustained  by  the  facts.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  beyond  question  that  the  lot 
of  many  a  woman  on  a  farm  is  far  from  desir- 
able— less  desirable  than  that  of  the  man.  So 
far,  we  are  doing  little  for  the  farmer's  wife. 
From  one  point  of  view,  however,  the  farm 
woman  is  the  key  to  the  rural  situation.  Her 
status,  her  intelligence,  her  happiness,  her  wel- 
fare, her  ideals,  her  intellectual  development 
are,  on  the  farm  as  elsewhere,  the  test  of  civili- 
zation, and,  if  that  be  possible,  even  more  so 
on  the  farm  than  elsewhere,  because  of  the 
intimate  way  in  which  the  work  and  the  life 
of  the  farm  are  bound  together.  Anything 
that  will  enrich  family  life,  anything  that  will 
make  it  more  refined,  anything  that  will  make 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  45 

the  house  labors  more  easy,  anything  that  will 
give  a  larger  outlook  from  the  farm  home,  any- 
thing that  will  minister  to  the  joy  and  comfort 
of  living  under  rural  conditions  must  have  a 
profound  influence  upon  the  ultimate  solution 
of  the  farm  problem.  Here  is  a  field  that  has 
virtually  been  untouched  by  those  interested 
in  rural  life,  and  yet,  perhaps,  it  contains  the 
crux  of  the  situation. 

4.  The  community-sense,  or  neighborhood 
^^^y^/ _New  England  has  one  advantage  in 
this  respect,  in  that  the  town  spirit  is  a  very 
real  thing,  and  if  the  town  happens  to  be  a 
farming  town  it  is  not  difficult  to  develop  the 
town  ambitions  and  to  appeal  to  town  pride. 
But  for  the  m.ost  part  farm  life  is  broken  up 
into  little  neighborhoods,  without  exact  bound- 
aries, without  very  much  coherence,  and,  in 
fact,  without  much  to  tie  people  into  a  real 
group.  Consequently  ideals  for  the  develop- 
ment of  a  community  or  a  given  area  are  diffi- 
cult of  crystallization,  because  there  is  not 
much  to  crystallize  about.  Some  device  should 
be  found,  however,  by  which  a  nucleus  of  com- 
munity pride  may  be  developed,  and  around 
which  may  be  gathered  those  forces  of  rural 
progress  that  will  tend  to  give  group  unity, 


46  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

group  ambition.  If  the  farmer  is  to  be  social- 
ized, it  must  be  done  objectively.  He  must 
have  something  to  work  for  that  is  definite  and 
worth  while.  Probably  this  can  come  about 
only  by  a  definite  propaganda  which  involves  a 
full  program  for  individual  and  community 
betterment,  permeated  by  a  sufficient  leaven 
of  idealism  to  stir  the  imagination  and  to  give 
moral  values  to  the  ends  to  be  striven  for  by  the 
people  themselves.  Doubtless  some  meeting- 
place  for  community  purposes,  like  a  neighbor- 
hood house,  will  prove  to  be  necessary  to  the 
best  development  of  neighborhood  spirit. 

n.      EDUCATION 

There  are  three  phases  of  rural  education: 
first,  the  acquiring  of  accurate  knowledge  about 
agriculture  and  country  life;  second,  the  educa- 
tion of  youth  in  schools  and  colleges;  and  third, 
the  wide  dissemination  among  all  people  of  the 
knowledge  of  agriculture  and  country  life. 

The  acquiring  of  knowledge. — For  many  cen- 
turies, new  knowledge  about  soil  tillage  was 
gained  very  slowly,  by  empirical  methods 
largely,  and  passed  with  difficulty  into  common 
practice.  Within  a  generation  institutions  in 
America  have  been  organized  for  the  sole  busi- 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    47 

ness  of  instituting  scientific  research  into  the 
realm  of  laws  governing  agricultural  operations, 
and  for  experimenting  with  the  practical  appli- 
cation of  those  laws  to  the  soil,  the  plant,  and 
the  animal.  This  work  has  been  done  princi- 
pally by  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture  and  by  the  splendid  system  of 
agricultural  experiment  stations,  supported  in 
part  by  the  government  and  in  part  by  the 
states.  A  vast  fund  of  information  has  thus 
been  made  available  for  the  use  of  our  farmers, 
and  even  though  the  work  is  new,  so  much  has 
been  done  that  it  has  already  had  a  profound 
influence  upon  agricultural  practice  and  con- 
sequently upon  agricultural  production.  Of 
course  other  tasks  have  been  performed  by 
our  experiment  stations.  They  have  dissemi- 
nated the  information  thus  gained  through 
bulletins  and  lectures;  they  have  assisted  the 
farmers  through  the  inspection  of  fertilizers 
and  feeding  stuffs;  but  their  main  work  is 
research  and  experimentation  in  the  realm  of 
laws  governing  plant  and  animal  growth.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that,  great  as  has  been  their 
work,  "it  has  but  just  begun,"  to  use  a  common 
but  striking  phrase.  A  distinguished  agri- 
cultural educator  was  heard  to  remark  not  long 


48  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

since  that  in  not  a  single  realm  of  agricultural 
science  do  the  investigators  feel  that  they  have 
approximated  the  whole  truth.  The  task  of 
acquiring  further  knowledge  about  the  laws  of 
plant  and  animal  development  and  the  relation 
of  the  soil  and  other  physical  facts  to  that 
development  is  fundamental  to  the  education 
of  soil-tillers  and  to  industrial  efficiency  in 
agriculture. 

Until  very  recently  almost  no  attention  has 
been  given  to  the  scientific  study  of  the_eco- 
nomic  and  social  aspects  of  the  business  of  farm- 
ing an?  of  the  life  of  the  rural  people.  This 
neglected  field  Is  also  to  be  tilled  with  thor- 
oughness, and  study  therein  will  be  as  full  of 
rewards  for  human  welfare  as  the  researches  of 
the  chemist  and  biologist. 

Still  another  form  of  acquiring  knowledge 
is  being  organized,  which  promises  to  be  of  the 
utmost  consequence  in  the  future  development 
of  the  industry  and  life  of  the  country  people. 
At  present  it  goes  by  the  name  of  an  '^Agri- 
cultural  Survey."  Heretofore  we  have  dealt 
very  largely  with  general  truths  and  their  wide 
application.  Farmers  have  been  left  to  apply 
these  truths  to  their  special  cases.  But  we 
have  come  to  feel  that,  after  all,  each  indi- 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  49 

vidual  farm  has  a  number  of  conditions  pecul- 
iar to  itself.  While  it  must  ever  be  true  that 
the  individual  farm  owner  or  worker  shall  be 
responsible  for  the  management  of  that  indi- 
vidual farm,  nevertheless  much  aid  can  be  given 
him  by  scientific  study  of  the  particular  condi- 
tions under  which  he  labors.  So  the  next  few 
years  will  see  a  large  development  of  agricul- 
tural surveys,  which  shall  attempt  to  collate 
and  systematize  information  relative  to  the 
natural  environment  of  the  individual  farmer, 
as  of  soil,  climate,  etc.;  the  more  minute 
economic  conditions  that  govern  his  work,  such 
as  local  markets  and  transportation;  the 
methods  of  farm  management  by  which  he 
correlates  the  various  factors  of  production 
and  distribution  to  his  own  best  advantage; 
and  the  social  life  which  represents  his  spiritual 
environment,  with  its  contribution  to  his  in- 
dustrial efficiency  and  to  the  enlargement  of 
his  own  individual  spirit. 

The  development  of  the  school  as  a  means  of 
rural  education. — There  are  two  large  move- 
ments necessary  in  the  growth  of  schools  for  the 
education  of  the  rural  people.  The  first  lies 
with_thejural_school,  i.e..,_the_CQJXimQiL-public 
school  situated  in  a  rural  environment.     This 


50  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

is  simply  the  general  problem  of  education  under 
rural  conditions;  but  inasmuch  as  these  rural 
conditions  differ  from  urban  conditions,  it  gives 
rise  to  a  very  important  question.  Put  in  the 
briefest  form,  there  are  three  great  difficulties 
in  rural  school  work :  First,  to  secure  a  modern 
school  at  an  expense  that  is  within  the  reach 
of  the  community.  For  this  end  state  aid 
must  be  invoked  on  the  principles  that  all  the 
wealth  of  the  state  must  provide  for  the  educa- 
tion of  all  the  youth  of  the  state,  and  that  the 
country  boy  and  girl  are  entitled  to  the  best 
education  which  the  state  can  afford.  Second, 
to  provide  adequate  high-school  facilities. 
This  will  have  to  be  done  largely  by  a  cen- 
tralization of  schools,  and  by  transporting 
students  either  in  vans  or  on  trolley  lines. 
Third,  to  make  the  school  a  vital  and  coherent 
part  of  the  community  life.  This  is  a  hard 
thing  to  do  in  the  city;  it  is  equally  difficult 
in  the  country.  But  the  country  school  should 
play  a  far  larger  part  than  now  in  solving  the 
rural  problem.  It  should  not  merely  give  to 
children  elements  of  universal  knowledge;  it 
should  be  a  factor  in  building  up  the  com- 
munity. 

The  second  movement  in  rural  education  is 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    51 

definite  school  instruction  in  agriculture  as  a 
vocational  subject.  The  rural  schools  should 
of  course  train  boys  and  girls  for  life  in  general, 
without  regard  to  whether  they  are  to  be  resi- 
dents of  the  city  or  of  the  country.  But  there 
must  also  be  facilities  in  the  pubhc  schools  for 
the  preparation  of  youth  for  agriculture  as  a 
business.  At  this  point  there  is  a  great  gap 
in  our  educational  system.  We  need  finishing 
schools,  approximately  of  secondary  grade,  in 
which  the  leading  effort  shall  be  to  educate  » 
pupils  for  agriculture  and  country  life.  The 
training  in  these  schools  will  be  avowedly 
technical,  but  not  wholly  so;  for  it  is  important 
to  remember  that  technical  skill  or  knowledge 
is  but  a  part  of  preparation  for  vocation.  Both 
the  existing  high  schools  and  specially  estab- 
lished schools  will  be  utilized  for  this  great 
work  of  vocational  training  in  agriculture. 

At  the  present  time,  our  agricultural  colleges 
are  the  most  prominent  feature  ofagricultiiral 
instruction.  Supported  in  part  by  the  United 
States  government,  and  in  part  by  the  states, 
they  have  for  many  years  been  training  men 
for  successful  agriculture,  and  also  for  posi- 
tions of  high  responsibihty  in  research  and  in 
teaching.     It  now  appears  that   the  fields  of 


52  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

usefulness  for  men  trained  in  these  colleges  are 
constantly  increasing  in  number  and  variety. 
A  brief  summary  of  the  agricultural  yocations 
for  which  agricultural  colleges  may  prepare 
would  include : 

a)  Independent  farming.  This  would  com- 
prise all  of  those  branches  of  agriculture  and 
horticulture  that  have  to  do  with  the  growing 
of  plants  and  animals  for  human  use.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  the  opportunities  for  college 
men  in  this  field  are  developing  very  rapidly. 

b)  Vocations  connected  with  agriculture, 
where  expert  service  is  needed  by  some  large 
enterprise,  government  or  private,  such  as  the 
Forestry  Service,  or  the  superintendency  of 
large  estates. 

c)  Research  and  teaching  along  agricultural 
lines.  The  demand  for  men  is  much  beyond 
the  supply,  and  the  development  of  agri- 
cultural high  schools  is  creating  a  still  further 
demand. 

d)  Positions  in  general  enterprises  more  or 
less  dependent  upon  agriculture,  where  men 
with  agricultural  training  are  needed  for  tech- 
nical and  managerial  work,  such  as  the  canning 
industries,  the  fertihzer  business,  etc. 

e)  A  series   of   vocations  which   are  really 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    53 

agricultural  in  their  nature  ^  requiring  agricul- 
tural training,  and  in  which,  too,  there  are 
developed  leaders  in  social  service,  such  as 
teachers  in  rural  communities,  rural  librarians, 
rural  Y.M.C.A.  secretaries,  and  country  clergy- 
men. 

Popular  education  in  agriculture. — There  is 
a  multitude  of  ways  b}^  which  information  about 
agriculture  and  country  life  may  be  given 
currency  among  the  people  at  large.  The  agri- 
cultural press  of  course  plays  a  large  part  in 
this  movement.  Volun tar3^^rganizations ,  such 
as  the  Grange  and  farmers'  clubs,  assist  in 
distributing  new  information.  There  are  cor- 
respqridence_xai.irses  in  agriculture  under  pri- 
vate auspices.  State  boards  of  agriculture 
have,  in  a  number  of  states,  carried  on  systems 
of  farmers'  institutes  which  have  been  of  the 
greatest  value  in  distributing  information  about 
new  farming.  The  ^agricultural  ^colleges  are 
also  doing  a  large  work,  and  must  in  the  future 
perform  an  even  more  important  function,  in 
the  popular  dissemin^ion  of  agricultural  in- 
formation. This  work  in  a  broad  way  is 
known  as  "extension  work,"  and  it  means  the 
development  in  organized  form  of  various 
methods  of  reaching  the  farmers,  at  or  near 


54  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

their  homes.     It  consists  of  three  rather  distinct 
methods,  or  types  of  work. 

1.  Formal  teaching,  or  systematic  instruc- 
tion, which  is  carried  on  through  well-organized 
lecture  courses,  reading  and  correspondence 
courses,  movable  schools,  and  permanent  dem- 
onstration plots  or  farms. 

2.  Work  that  is  more  or  less  advisory  and 
suggestive,  and  perhaps  not  thoroughly  organ- 
ized. It  may  be  done  directly  by  the  college, 
or  through  the  machinery  of  other  organiza- 
tions. This  informal  instruction  will  include 
the  convention,  which  may  be  simply  a  con- 
ference, or  may  be  a  well-developed  system  of 
farmers'  institutes;  the  itinerant  lecturer  and 
the  traveling  adviser;  the  publication  and 
distribution  of  a  great  deal  of  literature,  such 
as  monographs  on  special  subjects,  the  com- 
pilation of  useful  knowledge,  leaflets,  press 
bulletins,  personal  correspondence,  traveling 
libraries.  It  would  invoke  the  aid  of  object- 
lessons,  such  as  field  and  platform  demonstra- 
tions, exhibits  and  judging  at  fairs,  excursions 
to  the  college,  co-operative  demonstrations  and 
tests,  traveling  vans,  and  railway  trains. 

3.  The  third  type  of_this  extension  work  may 
be  called  ^^c(>ordmation,''  by  which  an  effort  is 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    55 

made  to  bring  together  the  different  agencies 
representing  the  rural  movement,  to  hold  con- 
ferences on  rural  progress,  to  co-operate  with 
other  agencies,  and  indeed  to  stimulate  various 
organizations  to  do  their  best  work  in  their 
respective  fields. 

Extension  work  promises  to  become  one  of 
the  most  important  branches  of  the  agricultural 
college  activity,  and  in  fact  lies  at  the  basis  of 
a  complete  educational  system  for  agriculture 
and  country  life.  The  working  farmer  must 
be  reached  on  his  own  farm. 

III.      ORGANIZATION 

The  history  of  agricultural  organizations  in 
America  is  a  very  interesting  one,  beginning 
with  the  development  of  the  agricultural  fairs, 
the  farmers'  clubs,  etc.,  and  including  the  great 
farmers'  movement  of  the  last  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  which  arose  during  the 
period  of  general  agricultural  discontent,  and 
which  attempted  to  combine  the  entire  farm- 
ing class  into  one  compact  organization.  It 
would  take  us  too  far  afield  to  describe  even 
briefly  these  various  efforts  to  secure  the  group 
strength  of  the  farmers.  It  is  important, 
however,  not  to  omit  from  a  discussion  of  the 


56  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

rural  problem  the  place  which  organization 
fills  in  its  solution.  It  is  a  fundamental 
necessity.  It  may  sound  like  an  echo  of  the 
doctrine  of  brute  strength  to  assert  that  the 
farming  class,  like  other  classes,  needs  to  assert 
itself  in  order  to  play  its  part  in  on-going 
civilization.  I  v/ould  call  your  attention  to  a 
remark  made  by  Professor  Charles  H.  Cooley: 

The  self-assertion  of  the  wage-earning  class,  so  far 
as  it  is  orderly  and  pursuant  of  ideals  which  all  classes 
share,  has  commanded  not  only  the  respect  but  the 
good  will  of  the  people  at  large.  Weakness — ^intrinsic 
weakness,  the  failure  of  the  member  to  assert  its  func- 
tion— is  instinctively  despised.  I  am  so  far  in  sympathy 
with  the  struggle  for  existence  as  to  think  that  passive 
kindliness  alone,  apart  from  self-assertion,  is  a  demor- 
alizing ideal,  or  would  be  if  it  were  likely  to  become 
ascendant.  But  the  self  which  is  asserted,  the  ideal 
fought  for,  must  be  a  generous  one — involving  perhaps 
self-sacrifice  as  that  is  ordinarily  understood — or  the 
struggle  is  degrading. 

Organization,  then,  becomes  a  test^of  class 
efficiency.  Has  aTgreaf  class  of  people  like  the 
farmers  the  power  to  combine,  the  intelligence 
to  combine,  the  will  to  combine?  Organiza- 
tion, moreover,  and  by  the  same  token,  tends 
to  conserve  class  efficiency.  Can  the  class 
maintain  an  organization  that  enables  it  to 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  57 

assert  itself,  to  make  itself  felt  for  its  own 
interests  and  for  the  interests  of  the  nation  ? 

Organization  Js_  also  a_  powerful  educational 
force.  Whenever  a  class  of  people  organizes 
for  a  given  purpose,  it  is  bound  to  debate  the 
most  fundamental  considerations  of  political 
and  industrial  life,  and  such  discussion  cannot 
but  be  educative  in  its  results.  The  process 
is  far  more  educative  than  to  raise  merely 
academic  questions.  Moreover,  farmers,  be- 
cause of  their  isolation  and  inpvidualism, 
particularly  need  the  force  of  organization  to 
bring  them  together,  to  get  them  to  see  their 
problems  in  a  large  way.  Th^  cannot  pos- 
sibly exert  their  best  influence  onnational  life 
unless  rural  public  opinion  can  be  crystallized, 
iiTcarnated,  ^ut  at  work.  Of  course  this  will 
be^Hone  to  some  extent  through  the  ballot  box, 
but  it  is  common  knowledge  that  the  ballot  box 
does  not  give  full  expression  to  the  social  activ- 
ity of  our  people. 

The  social  tendency  of  the  age  is  clearly  to- 
ward  social  seTf^dTfectrom  "  We  "set  up 'goals  for 
civilization,  and  we  endeavor  to  organize  public 
opinion  in  such  a  way  that  the  goals  may  be 
reaHzed.  We  plan  for  the  direction  in  which 
society  shall  go.     This  process  is  just  as  im- 


58  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

portant  for  the  farming  class  as  for  any  other 
class.  It  is  a  mark  of  progress  when  a  class 
can  organize  and  determine  its  course.  The 
facFthat  other  classes  are  organized  is  therefore 
a  very  good  reason  why  the  farmers  should 
organize.  They  need  to  organize  for  self-pro- 
tection.  They  need  to  make  themselves  felt 
on  behalf  of  their  own  interests.  There  must 
necessarily  be  more  or  less  friction  between 
classes.  Even  a  large  class  of  people  like  the 
farmers  will  often  have  their  rights  invaded, 
unless  they  are  in  a  position  to  protect  them- 
selves. Not  only  so,  but  no  class  of  people 
can  in  an  unorganized  form  assert  itself  as  a 
part  of  the  national  life.  In  some  way  there 
must  be  a  chance  to  gather  up  the  group  senti- 
ment, the  group  power,  the  group  opinion,  and 
bring  them  to  bear  on  the  great  issues  of  our 
common  life. 

At  two  points  particularly  is  there  great  need 
for  adequate  organization  of  the  agricultural 
classes^  The  present  unsatisfactory  system  of 
distribution  of  \farm  products  can  never  be 
fully  remedied  Wtil  farmers  combine  in  a 
systematic  and  comprehensive  fashion  for  busi- 
ness co-operation .\  Buying  together,  selling 
together,  co-operative  activities  in  many  minor 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    59 

neighborhood  enterprises,  are  essential  to  per- 
manent industrial  success  in  agriculture. 

It  is  also  vitally  necessary  that  farmers  shall 
insist  "upon  legislation  favorable  to. their  own 
interests.^  I  do  not  mean  class  legislation  in 
an  individual  sense,  but  laws  that  give  sub- 
stantial justice  to  the  farmers  as  producers. 
Individual  farmers  become  more  and  more 
helpless  against  the  aggressions  of  capitalism. 
In  the  recent  tariff  discussion  in  Congress,  for 
instance,  there  was  very  little  said  about  the 
way  in  which  the  schedules  would  affect  the 
farmers.  The  alleged  attempt  to  monopolize 
the  water  power  of  the  nation  will  have,  if 
successful,  a  very  important  bearing  upon 
agricultural  welfare. 

Of  course  there  are  possible  disadvantages 
coming  from  farmers'  organizations.  They 
may  emphasize  undesirable  class  distinctions. 
They  may  be  unwisely  led.  They  may  tend  to 
eliminate  the  individual.  These  are  small 
things  about  which  we  may  be  cautious.  Fun- 
damentally, organization  is  essential  to  rural 
progress  and  the  solution  of  the  rural  problem. 

Only  those  who  have  had  something  to  do 
with  farmers  through  a  period  of  years  can 
appreciate  how  difficult  it  is,  however,  to  de- 


6o  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

velop  farmers'  organizations.  There  are  the 
ingrained  habits  of  individual  initiative;  there 
is  a  lack  of  leadership;  there  is  the  fact  that 
those  composing  the  rural  class  as  a  whole  do 
not  always  have  a  common  interest  with  respect 
to  social  ideals,  economic  needs,  or  political 
creeds.  Sometimes  financial  considerations 
stand  in  the  way;  sometimes  economic  or  po- 
litical fallacies  kill  off  otherwise  good  organi- 
zations; sometimes  mere  suspicion  prevents 
co-operation. 

Organization^sjor  social  and  educational  ends 
are  peculiarly  needed,  and  have  been  supplied 
pe^psl)est_of  allby  the  Grange.  The  Grange 
has  also  done  something  to  secure  business  co- 
operation. Probably  the  great  development 
of  agricultural  organization  in  the  future  lies 
along  the  lines  of  business  co-operation. 

IV.      RELIGIOUS  IDEALISM 

The  groundwork  of  all  efforts  on  behalf  of 
the  rural  population  is  after  all  to  establish 
the  highestjgossible  ideals  _for_  persona)  and 
community  life.  This  idealism  ought  to  per- 
meate all  attempts  at  socialization,  all  efforts 
at  education,  all  movements  for  organization. 
Necessarily,  however,  it  will  be  fostered  most 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    6i 

completely  by  the  institutions  of  religion — by 
the  church  and  its  allies.  JThis  idealism  will, 
first  of  all,  have  to  do  v/ith_the  ethicsol  the 
situation^vithjthe^moral  standards  and  habits 
of  the  people.  Certainly  it  is  important  to 
the  cities  as  well  as  to  the  country  that  the 
"righteousness  that  exalte th  a  nation"  shall  be 
the  dominant  note  in  rural  life.  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  this  idealism  ought  to  have  a 
religious  motive. 

But  there  is  another  element  in  this  develop- 
ment of  rural  idealism  that  needs  to  be  empha- 
sized, the  necessity  of  stimulating  a  love  and 
appreciation  of  the  rural  environment  and  life. 
No  class  of  people  can  succeed  long  in  the 
country  unless  they  love  the  country,  and  this 
love  of^thecountrj^must  be  based  on  some- 
thing more  than  mere  industrial  success.  The 
life  of  the  country  is  permeated  w^ith  poetry, 
not  alone  because  the  farmer  lives  near  to 
Nature,  works  with  Nature  constantly,  lives 
his  life  in  an  environment  that  is  filled  with  all 
the  poetry  that  Nature  can  yield  to  man,  but 
because  the  work  itself  has  a  poetic  aspect  much 
more  easily  recognized  than,  for  instance,  the 
labor  in  a  noisy  machine  shop.  I  think  that 
the  sound  of  the  mowing  machine  at  work  in 


62  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

the  June  clover  is  real  music.  A  friend  of 
mine  says,  ''It  is  music,  if  you  are  not  the  one 
who  sits  on  the  machine!"  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  remark — but  then  that  is  prose. 
Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  of  England,  in  a 
recent  lecture  in  this  country  on  ''Aesthetics 
in  a  Democracy,"  has  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  we  cannot  have  poetry  in  a  democ- 
racy until  we  develop  the  poetry  of  industry, 
and  that  at  present  we  have  practically  no 
po_etrv_of  indu.atrv.  In  this  connection,  he 
said  that  agriculture,  even  with  the  use  of 
machinery,  yields  itself  more  fully  than  any 
other  industry  to  the  poetic  note.  Now  this 
poetic  phase  of  country  life,  not  as  sentimental- 
ism,  not  as  mere  luxury  of  the  senses,  but  as 
real,  genuine  romance  and  poetry  at  the  heart 
of  things,  and  as  tied  up  with  the  processes  of 
agriculture  and  with  the  hfe  in  the  open,  must 
penetrate  the  souls  of  the  dwellers  upon  the 
land. 

Doubtless  the  practical  forces  of  the  idealism 
referred  to  wilfbe  foundnn  setting  a  definite 
goal  for  the  community.  We  may  call  it  "the 
kingdom  of  God,"  we  may  call  it  "a  new  rural 
civilization,"  we  may  simply  call  it  "rural 
progress,"  or  the  idea  of  having  "a  better  com- 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    63 

munity";  but  there  is  dire  need  of  recognizing 
the  deficiencies  of  country  hfe  as  they  actually 
exist  in  the  country  communities,  and  of  having 
something  to  work  toward.  The  community 
life  should  be  made  dynamic  rather  than  static. 
It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  any  legitimate  effort 
made  by  any  institution  to  improve  rural  con- 
ditions is  sure  to  involve  this  idealism.  It 
may  not  always  have  a  religious  motive,  but 
it  will  be  an  advantage,  a  step  forward,  some- 
thing worth  while.  The  church  ought  to 
welcome  the  efforts  of  any  agency  that  will 
cultivate  this  spirit  of  idealism  in  the  country 
community,  among  the  rural  people.  At  the 
same  time  the  church  is  peculiarly  the  conser- 
vator of  the  highest  type  of  idealism — that 
which  is  moved  by  the  religious  instinct  and  be- 
lief. The  great  danger  is  that  the  church,  with 
its  creeds,  its  historic  setting,  its  ecclesiastical 
machinery,  may  tend  to  distinguish  between 
what  it  pleases  to  call  "secular"  and  ''sacred." 
But  this  ideaHsm  must  have  organic  unity.  It 
ought  to  minister  to  the  highest  things  in  per- 
sonal and  community  life.  I  believe  it  cannot 
have  unity,  nor  hope  to  inspire  the  highest  life, 
unless  it  have  religious  motive.  But  be  that  as 
it  may,  this  idealism  must  be  one  great  sweep 


64  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

of  sentiment,  of  high  emotion,  that  touches 
heart  strings,  that  directs  wills,  and  that  fur- 
nishes inspiration  for  the  work  and  Hfe  of  the 
people  who  live  upon  the  land. 


V.      FEDERATION  OF  FORCES 

We  have  now  stated  what  may  be  regarded  as 
the  fundamental  principles  of  improvement  in 
the  rural  community,  each  representing  a 
basic  need — socialization,  education,  organiza- 
tion, ideahsm.  To  carry  out  these  principles, 
it  is  obvious  that  we  must  have  social  agencies, 
machinery,  institutions.  It  is  probable  that 
we  already  have  forces  sufficient  for  all  purposes, 
if  properly  organized  and  managed.  But  again, 
I  say,  we  must  not  forget  that  there  is  a  unity  in 
this  farm  problem;  that  while  it  has  many 
phases  and  is  many  sided,  after  all  it  is  one 
great  problem;  and  if  it  is  one  great  problem, 
there  is  special  need  that  all  the  forces  that  are 
to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  its  solution  should 
work  together.  There  is  no  panacea  for  the 
rural  problem.  There  is  no  one  solution  for 
the  difficulty.  So  we  need  the  co-operation 
of  all  agencies  and  all  people.  The  v/orkers  in 
each  branch  must  understand  the  whole  prob- 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM    65 

lem  and  the  relation  of  other  institutions  to  it. 
We  must  all  march  forward  as  one  army. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  idea  of  federating  these 
various  forces  of  socmlizatipiij^education,  organ- 
izadon,  and  idealism  becomes  dominant.  We 
lieeH^  clearing-house  for  all  rural  workers  and 
interests,  in  order  that  the  ultimate  goal  of  rural 
life  may  be  kept  constantly  in  mind,  and  that 
all  workers  may  square  their  special  labors  to 
the  main  task.  In  fine,  we  need  in  the  coun- 
try  the  counterpart  of  the  new  movement  for 
"city-planning,"  a  movement  which  shall  be 
a  real  "campaign  for  rural  progress" — a  cam- 
paign in  every  commuplty,  county,  and  state — 
even  of  national  scope — which  shall  have  for 
its  purpose  the  solution  of  the  rural  problem, 
the  ushering-in  ^f  a  new  rural  civilization. 
This  campaign  ^ill  recognize  industrial,  social, 
and  moral  needs,  and  will  endeavor  to  unite 
all  forces  and  all  people  for  the  common  end 
of  a  better  agriculture  and  country  life. 

A  necessary  corollary  of  this  "campaign  for 
rural  progress"  is  the  development^of  personal 
leadership  in  rural  communities.  Individual 
men  and  women  must  do  what  needs  doing — 
institutions  are  but  vehicles  for  carrying  human 
endeavor,  boilers  for  generating  human  powers. 


66  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

I  will  close  by  quoting  from  the  report  of  the 
Commission  on  Country  Life  a  paragraph 
entitled  ''The  Call  for  Leadership": 

We  must  picture  to  ourselves  a  new  rural  social  struc- 
ture, developed  from  the  strong  resident  forces  of  the 
open  country;  and  then  we  must  set  at  work  all  the 
agencies  that  will  tend  to  bring  this  about.  The  entire 
people  need  to  be  roused  to  this  avenue  of  usefulness. 
Most  of  the  new  leaders  must  be  farmers  w^ho  can  find 
not  only  a  satisfying  business  career  on  the  farm,  but 
who  will  throw  themselves  into  the  service  of  upbuilding 
the  community.  A  new  race  of  teachers  is  also  to 
appear  in  the  country.  A  new  rural  clergy  is  to  be 
trained.  These  leaders  will  see  the  great  underlying 
problem  of  country  life,  and  together  they  will  work, 
each  in  his  own  field,  for  the  one  goal  of  a  new  and 
permanent  rural  civilization.  On  the  development  of 
this  distinctively  rural  civilization  rests  ultimately 
our  ability,  by  methods  of  farming  requiring  the  highest 
intelligence,  to  continue  to  feed  and  clothe  the  hungry 
nations;  to  supply  the  city  and  metropolis  with 
fresh  blood,  clean  bodies,  and  clear  brains  that  can 
endure  the  strain  of  modern  urban  life;  and  to  pre- 
serve a  race  of  men  in  the  open  country  that,  in  the 
future  as  in  the  past,  will  be  the  stay  and  strength  of 
the  nation  in  time  of  war,  and  its  guiding  and  con- 
trolling spirit  in  time  of  peace. 


Ill 

THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH^ 

It  is  hopeless  to  expect  that  the  church  can 
fulfil  its  mission  among  the  people  who  live 
upon  the  land  unless  it  conceives  Jts  function 
in  terms_ofJhe_EnaameiltaLn^  of  J:hose 
pSopieT  Furthermore,  it  must  interpret  those 
underlying  needs  in  the  light  of  the  actual  con- 
ditions which  exist  in  the  industrial  and  social 
life  of  the  times.  For  these  reasons,  attention 
has  thus  far  been  directed  to  the  larger  aspects 
of  the  permanent  rural  problem,  and  to  the 
great  forces  which  must  be  invoked  if  we  are 
to  secure  a  progressive  solution  of  the  problem. 

I  The  author  has  in  mind  as  the  "country  church,"  in  this 
whole  discussion,  the  church  which  ministers  chiefly  to  the 
people  who  till  the  soil.  He  is  quite  aware  that  in  some  parts 
of  the  United  States  the  word  "rural"  is  habitually  used  to  define 
communities  outside  the  cities.  The  line  of  cleavage  between  a 
genuine  country  church  and  other  non-urban  churches  is  indefinite, 
and  in  the  author's  judgment  need  not  be  made  sharp  and  clear. 
Doubtless  the  village  church,  Hke  the  village  itself,  constitutes  a 
social  problem;  yet  the  same  general  principles  are  applicable  to 
church  work  both  in  small  non-urban  communities  and  in  the 
more  strictly  "country"  regions.  It  seems  best,  however,  to 
state  clearly  what  type  of  church  and  community  the  author  has 
more  or  less  consciously  in  the  background  of  his  imagination. 

67 


68  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

We  have  before  us  then  this  important  goal 
of  American  civiHzation — the  maintenance  upon 
our  land  of  a  class  of  people  who  fairly  repre- 
sent our  national  standards  of  government,  of 
industrial  efficiency,  of  social  privilege,  of  in- 
telligence, and  of  virtue.  And  we  have  dis- 
cussed the  large  principles,  or  groups  of  forces, 
that  seem  essential  in  the  working-out  of  the 
effort  to  keep  our  rural  people  to  the  levels  of 
the  best  American  ideals.  We  have  not  here 
time  to  elaborate  the  methods  by  which  these 
forces  can  be  incorporated  into  appropriate 
institutions.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  obvious  that 
each  of  these  great  needs  of  rural  life  has  already 
developed  its  special  institutions.  The  state, 
the  school,  the  voluntary  organization,  the 
church  are  all  serviceable  in  promoting  rural 
Vs^ealth  and  welfare.  And  it  needs  little  argu- 
ment to  convince  us  that  such  institutions  are 
necessary.  Private  initiative  and  business  en- 
terprise must  of  course  be  relied  upon  to 
forward  good  purposes.  But  society  seeks  to 
stimulate  and  even  to  direct  individual  efforts 
toward  large  ends  that  are  for  the  good  of  soci- 
ety as  well  as  the  individual.  Men  must  work 
together  in  some  organized  fashion,  if  social 
progress  is  to  come  to  its  full  flov/er.      The 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   69 

church  is  one  of  these  forms  of  organized  ef- 
fort. It  has  a  speciaL^^QiL  to  do.  What  is 
that  work  ? 

Before  answering  that  direct  question,  we 
must  indulge  in  some  general  observations  con- 
cerning the  place  of  the  church  as  one  of  the 
social  institutions  needed  in  solving  the  problem. 

The  church  jnu^s^  be  franM}7^  regarded^  its 
best  friends  even,  as  one  among^seyeral  insti- 
tutionsjvitaT  to.  rural, life.  It  is  not  the  only 
institution  essential  to  rural  salvation.  This 
simple  statement  may  be  a  rock  of  offense  to 
many,  a  platitude  to  others.  It  is  a  main 
feature  of  our  general  thesis,  however.  The 
more  readily  we  recognize  its  force,  and  the 
more  quickly  we  act  upon  its  implications,  the 
better  for  rural  progress  and  for  the  country 
church. 

Nevertheless,  the  church  has  a  peculiarly 
cjfose  relationship^LO  the  other  rural  institu- 
tions,^nd  m  jact  to  all  the  movements  of  rural 
life.  The  church  has  not  adequately  appre- 
ciated this  fact,  which  has  its  origin  in  a  char- 
acteristic feature  of  country  life,  namely,  that 
all  its  interests  are  very  intimately  bound  to- 
gether. The  work  of  the  farm  and  of  the  house- 
hold, the  life  of  the  family,  the  amusements  of 


70  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

the  neighborhood,  the  interests  of  all  in  school, 
Grange,  and  church  are  closely  intertwined. 
As  a  necessary  consequence,  the  institutions  of 
the  country  have  unusual  dependence  upon 
what  might  be  called  the  total  interests  of  the 
community.  Nowhere  else  is  the  school  so 
completely  at  the  mercy  of  the  local  ;gublic 
opinion,  for  good  or  for  ill,,  as  in  the  country. 
So  with  the  church.  It  draws  its  sustenance 
chiefly  from  a  small  community  of  people  of 
little  wealth.  It  possesses  one  of  the  very  few 
and  unusually  scattered  public  or  institutional 
buildings  of  the  community.  The  church  is 
deeply  dependent  upon  the  industry  of  the  com- 
munity. You  cannot  build  up  a  prosperous 
church  in  a  place  where  agriculture  is  declining. 
The  city  church  draws  its  members  from  a  wide 
area,  from  many  vocations;  the  country  church, 
from  a  narrow  area  and  from  practically  one 
vocation.  In  social  life,  even  if  there  be  several 
churches  in  the  neighborhood,  a  given  church 
is  quite  dependent  upon  the  general  social 
resources  of  the  community. 

This  brings  us  to  a  third  important  observa- 
tioiv^^^at  there  is  especiaTneed  in  the  country 
of  defining  broadly,  but  with  a  fair  degree  of 
clearness,  the  essential  functions  of  the  different 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   71 

groyps  of  institutions.  There  must  be  some 
guiding  principle  of  activity  that  is  workable 
in  practice,  while  in  harmony  with  a  sound 
social  analysis.  I  do  not  know  of  a  single  im- 
portant rural  institution,  save  one,  that  has 
thus  far,  in  a  large  way  at  least,  enunciated 
clearly  its  main  function  and  at  the  same  time 
provided  the  machinery  for  executing  the  mani- 
fold details  of  its  policy.  That  exception  is 
the  Grange,  which  in  its  declaration  of  purposes 
has  clearly  stated  its  task  in  inclusive  terms,  and 
in  its  machinery  of  organization  has  provided 
means  for  the  ends.  We  might  expect  that  the 
school  would  have  distinct  ends  in  view.  But 
the  rural  school  is  at  present  in  a  chaos  of  tran- 
sition schemes  designed  to  bridge  the  way  from 
the  old  individual  notion  of  instructing  Johnnie 
and  Mary  how  to  become  adept  in  the  use  of 
the  child's  chest  of  intellectual  tools,  to  that 
desirable  but  as  yet  uncertain  ground  where  the 
"school  must  reflect  the  life  and  industry  of  the 
community,"  and  "become  a  social  force  in  the 
community  life."  I  do  not  happen  to  know  of 
a  rural  church  with  a  program  of  work  for  its 
neighborhood  that  represents  a  really  live 
attack  upon  the  essential  problems  of  rural 
civilization — though   doubtless   such   churches 


72  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

exist.  The  Grange  comes  far  short  of  its  pro- 
gram. The  rural  school  with  all  its  uncertainty 
has  been  and  is  a  great  force.  The  church  is  a 
saving  salt  in  every  rural  community,  in  spite 
of  its  quiescence.  But  all  these  institutions 
will  take  on  new  vigor,  once  it  is  seen  just 
what  their  really  big  tasks  are,  and  how  big 
they  are,  and  when  they  plan  to  work  shoulder 
to  shoulder  for  the  large  general  community  aim. 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  RURAL  INSTITUTIONS 

In  order  that  we  may  now  come  at  once  to  the 
real  subject  of  this  series  of  lectures,  I  shall 
attempt  in  rather  dogmatic  fashion  to  state 
the  functions  of  those  main  social  institutions 
upon  which  we  must  chiefly  rely  for  the  solu- 
tion of  the  rural  problem. 

I.  Government  should  protect  the  legitimate 
interests  of  the  agricultural  classes,  in  so  far 
as  legislation  is  effective  for  this  end,  by  making 
and  enforcing  appropriate  laws;  it  should 
foster  the  agricultural  industry  by  collecting 
facts  and  distributing  information  concerning  the 
commercial  or  business  aspects  of  farming;  and 
it  should  encourage,  and  if  necessary  direct,  rural 
co-operative  enterprises  which  cannot  readily  be 
initiated  or  managed  by  voluntary  organizations. 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   73 

2.  The  agencies  of  rural  education  as  a  whole, 
forming  a  highly  specialized  branch  of  state 
activity,  while  serving  as  organs  of  general  edu- 
cation of  rural  youth,  should  also  make  it  a  part 
of  their  task  to  seek  out  new  knowledge  and  to 
use  all  knowledge  as  a  means  of  increasing  the 
industrial  efficiency  of  rural  people,  young  and 
old,  and  of  stimulating  their  intellectual  inter- 
ests; the  rural  and  agricultural  schools  in  par- 
ticular should  serve  as  centers  for  rural  culture ; 
and  should  develop  both  the  materials  for,  and 
the  spirit  of,  personal  service  in  behalf  of  neigh- 
borhood, state,  and  nation. 

3.  Farmers^  organizations  are  to  unite  the  in- 
dividuals living  upon  the  land  into  appropriate 
groups  for  various  common  purposes — indus- 
trial, social,  political — but  in  the  main  to  secure 
and  conserve  class  power,  both  in  the  interest 
of  the  class  and  of  society  as  a  whole. 

4.  The  country  church  (and  its  allies)  is  to 
maintain  and  enlarge  both  individual  and  com- 
munity ideals,  under  the  inspiration  and  guid- 
ance of  the  religious  motive,  and  to  help  rural 
people  to  incarnate  these  ideals  in  personal  and 
family  life,  in  industrial  effort  and  political 
development,  and  in  all  social  relationships. 

I  do  not  offer  these  statements  of  the  func- 


74  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

tions  of  the  great  rural  social  institutions  as 
final  scientific  definitions.  It  is  hoped  that 
they  may  have  essential  validity  in  the  present 
discussion  by  indicating  in  a  broad  way  the 
part  that  each  agency  may  take  in  rural  evolu- 
tion. We  may  not  enlarge  upon  any  of  them, 
save  the  last,  except  to  note  that  there  is  more 
or  less  overlapping  of  function,  that  neverthe- 
less the  work  of  each  institution  is  fairly  clear, 
and  that  all  must  work  together  if  consistent 
progress  is  to  be  made.  There  is  obvious  over- 
lapping of  function,  because  human  inspira- 
tions and  motives  are  rooted  in  diverse  strata 
of  condition  and  circumstance,  and  work  them- 
selves out  in  all  human  effort.  Institutions 
cannot  be  definitive.  The  most  they  can  do 
is  to  emphasize  certain  special  aspects  of  life  or 
thought.  For  example,  the  one  word  "educa- 
tional," in  a  very  broad  sense,  ought  to  be  used 
to  indicate  the  methods  of  all  these  institu- 
tions. All  the  results  too  are  education  for  the 
individual  and  the  race.  So  with  ideals.  They 
permeate  all  institutional  endeavor,  they  are 
fostered  by  all  co-operative  enterprise.  Yet 
the  main  task,  the  special  work  of  each  institu- 
tion, comes  out  with  some  clearness,  let  us  hope, 
in  the  statements  made  concerning  the  field 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   75 

each  is  to  cultivate.  The  same  reasons  hold 
for  an  argument  that  all  must  work  together. 
None  can  succeed  fully  unless  all  are  active  and 
efficient.  Just  because  the  human  mind  and 
heart  do  not  divide  into  compartments,  we  need 
the  total  efforts  of  specialized  social  functions. 
It  is  true  of  social  groups  as  of  individuals  that 
"now  are  they  many  members  and  yet  one 
body.'' 

Our  next  task  is  to  analyze  the  definition  of 
the  special  work  of  the  country  church,  which 
may  here  be  repeated : 

The  country  church  {and  its  allies)  is  to  main- 
tain and  enlarge  both  individual  and  community 
ideals,  under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of  the 
religious  motive,  and  to  help  rural  people  to  in- 
carnate these  ideals  in  personal  and  family  life, 
in  industrial  effort  and  political  development,  and 
in  all  social  relationships. 

THE  NEED   OF   IDEALS  IN  RURAL  LIFE 

This  definition  first  of  all  emphasizes  the 
need  of  ideals  in  rural  life.  Let  us  note  some  of 
the^ elements  of  this  need. 

One  grave  danger  to  permanent  rural  prog- 
ress is  the  low  level  of  ideals,  determined  by 
community    standards.     It    is    not    that    the 


76  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

average  ideals  are  lower  than  in  the  city.  I 
think  they  are  higher.  But  they  come  peril- 
ously close  to  a  dead  level  in  immense  areas  of 
country.  Thejne._is_an_  absence  of  that  ^  high 
idealism  that  acts  as  yeasj: .  upon  the  ;^hole 
mass,  which  often  prevails  in  .cities.  It  is 
harder  to  rise  above  the  conventions  in  the 
country,  simply  because  there  are  few  strata 
of  popular  habit.  In  the  city  there  are  many: 
the  individual  can  pass  from  one  to  another. 
Things  are  reduced  to  simpler  terms  in  the 
country.  This  has  its  advantages,  but  it 
tends  to  blight  budding  ideals  or  to  drive 
them  out  for  development  elsewhere — usually 
in  the  city. 

As  a  consequence  the  rural  community  is  in 
constant  danger  of  stagnation — of  settling  down 
into  the  easy  chairs  of  satisfaction.  Rural  life 
needs  _cons^ant  stimulus  of  imported  ideas — 
a  stimulus  of  suggestion  apart  from  its  daily 
routine. 

Moreover,  rural  ideals  sometimes  lack  breadth 
and  variety.  Life  in  the  country  easily  be- 
comes monotonous,  humdrum.  It  needs  broad- 
ening, as  well  as  elevating.  It  needs  variety, 
gaiety.  But  these  changes  can  find  their 
proper  stimulus  only  in  motives  that  are  high 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   77 

and  worthy.  Hence  an  appeal  must  be  made 
for  the  cultivation  of  ideals  of  personal  develop- 
ment and  neighborhood  advancement. 

When  ideals  do  come  into  country  life, 
they  are  apt  to  be  not  indigenous,  but  urban 
notions  transplanted  bodily.  Urban  ideals 
may  often  be  grafted  onto  some  strong  rural 
stock.  Transplantation  is  dangerous.  Some- 
one must  be  at  work  in  the  country  neighbor- 
hoods breeding  a  new  species  of  aspirations 
out  of  the  common  hardy  varieties  that  have 
proved  their  worth. 

Lack  of  ideals  is  in  a  sense  responsible  for 
the  drift  away  from  the  farm.  Some  people 
leave  the  country  because  they  cannot  realize 
their  ideals  in  the  existing  rural  atmosphere. 
Others  go  because  they  have  no  thought  of  the 
possibilities  of  country  life. 

In  a  former  chapter  attention  was  called  to 
the  fact  that  rural  life  is  more  full  of  poetry 
than  any  other.  BurTufal  romance  is  often 
stifled  in  the  j^ospherejoLdrudgery  andjsqla- 
tion.  This  high  sentiment  is  of  the  soul  and 
can  come  only  as  the  soul  expands.  It  is  not 
merely  an  enjoyment  of  trees,  crops,  and  ani- 
mals. It  is  in  part  a  sense  of  exaltation  born 
of  contact  with  God  at  work.     It  has  in  it  an 


78  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

element  of  triumph  because  great  powers  are 
being  harnessed  for  man's  bidding.  It  has  in 
it  somewhat  of  the  air  of  freedom,  because  of 
dealing  with  forces  free  and  wild  except  as  they 
are  held  in  leash  by  an  unseen  Master  driver. 
It  has  in  it  much  of  worship,  because  of  all  the 
deep  mysteries  of  seed  and  soil,  and  because  of 
the  everlasting,  patient  procession  of  the  sea- 
sons and  their  vicissitudes.  I  can  conceive 
of  preaching  that  would  give  to  farm  men  and 
women  a  new  birth  of  aspiration  and  hope 
simply  because  it  should  set  vibrating  the 
chords  of  poetry  and  romance  that  are  strung 
upon  the  harps  of  men  at  work  in  God's  out- 
of-doors — strings  too  often  untouched  by  any 
hand  save  that  of  chance. 

There  is  a  sparse  literature  expressing  this 
rural  poetry.  But  I  must  read  you  some 
verses  that  with  a  few  simple  strokes  illuminate 
this  whole  matter.  It  is  not  a  poem  about 
the  things  that  inspire  the  farmer  or  that  ought 
to  inspire  him;  it  is  a  revelation  of  his  heart 
as  he  works.  The  poem  is  by  Liberty  H. 
Bailey: 

I  hoe  and  I  plow 
I  plow  and  I  hoe 
And  the  wind  drives  over  the  main. 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH       79 

I  mow  and  I  plant 
I  plant  and  I  mow 
While  the  sun  burns  hot  on  the  plain. 

I  sow  and  I  reap 
I  reap  and  I  sow 
And  I  gather  the  wind  with  the  grain. 

I  go  and  I  come 
I  come  and  I  go 
In  the  calm  and  the  storm  and  the  rain. 


I  think  if  I  were  to  be  the  examiner  of  candi- 
dates for  the  country  ministry,  I  would  make 
one  important  question,  What  do  you  get  out 
of  that  poem?  There  are  some  men  fore- 
ordained to  the  city  parish! 

There  is  present  in  the  country  also  the  same 
abiding  human  need  for  sympathy,  for  stimulus 
and  inspiration,  as  exists  in  the  city.  The  per- 
sonal fight  for  character,  the  battle  of  the  soul 
against  sensuality  and  materialism,  goes  on. 
The  struggle  of  men  to  secure  the  reign  of  justice 
and  kindness  is  perpetual.  Perpetually  then 
we  must  hold  before  the  eyes  of  men  and  women 
the  vision  of  better  ways,  better  conditions, 
better  means  of  progress,  closer  brotherhood — 
the  vision  of  the  kingdom  of  God  within  the 
soul  and  as  a  social  structure.     Let  us  then  first 


8o  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

of  all  seek  to  '^maintain  and  enlarge  both  in- 
dividual and  community  ideals"  among  the 
people  who  live  and  work  upon  the  soil. 

"under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of 
the  religious  motive " 

Libraries  have  been  written  in  support  of  the 
thesis  that  human  character  finds  its  heights 
only  under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of  the 
religious  motive.  There  is  no  need  of  extended 
argument  here.  I  wish  to  say  squarely,  how- 
ever, that  we  cannot  in  my  judgment  hope 
adequately  to  idealize  country  life  nor  to  secure 
the  largest  development  either  of  personal  char- 
acter or  of  neighborhood  welfare,  except  by 
appealing  to  the  great  Christian  principles  of 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Masterhood  of 
Jesus,  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

This  statement  is  sufficient  to  justify  the 
church  in  standing  specifically  for  the  main- 
tenance and  enlargement  of  rural  ideals,  be- 
cause the  Christian  church  has  been  for  cen- 
turies the  institution  through  which  these  great 
principles  have  found  voice.  The  church  has 
a  right  therefore  to  assume  leadership  in  the 
permanent  work  of  developing  and  applying 
the  religious  motive  to  the  hopes  and  aspira- 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   8i 

tions  of  men.  This  leadership  just  now  is 
pecuHarly  imperative  because  of  the  marked 
tendency  everywhere  to  reduce  our  higher  Kfe 
to  an  unrehgious  basis. 

THE  CHURCH  IS  TO  ACHIEVE  RESULTS  IN  HUMAN 
CHARACTER  AND    SOCIAL   ENVIRONMENT 

The  purpose  of  church  work  is  practical.  It 
is  aimed  to  result  in  a  better  quality  of  manhood 
and  womanhood.  Now,  the  daily  life  of  men 
and  women  is  concerned  with  personal  tempta- 
tions, family  relationships,  the  labors  of  the 
vocation,  the  duties  of  citizenship,  the  manifold 
social  contacts  of  life.  Hence  ideals  to  be 
useful  must  work  out  successfully  in  this  daily 
life.  Conversely,  the  tone  of  daily  life  affects 
character.  The  reciprocal  influence  of  ideals 
and  of  these  environing  conditions  hammers 
out  human  character.  The  task  of  the  church 
as  the  social  organ  of  rehgious  ideahsm  is  there- 
fore to  attempt  to  "incarnate  its  ideals  in 
personal  and  family  life,  in  industrial  effort  and 
political  development,  and  in  all  social  relation- 
ships." To  achieve  this,  the  church  must 
incessantly  hold  up  these  ideals.  It  must  also 
clearly  teach  that  these  ideals  are  not  only  to 
be  fostered  by  activities  within  the  church,  but 


82  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

must  be  made  to  permeate  the  hopes  and 
motives  and  deeds  and  words  of  men  and 
women  in  every  relationship  and  in  every 
social  institution.  Thus  life  becomes  a  unity. 
Thus  religion  is  wedded  to  experience.  Thus 
toil  and  industry,  voting  and  political  debat- 
ing, friendliness  and  kindliness,  become  Chris- 
tianized— ChristHke.  And  only  so  may  these 
things  be. 

SOME   COROLLARIES   OF  THE  DEFINITION 

So  much  for  a  brief  analysis  of  our  definition 
of  the  function  of  the  country  church.  It  is 
necessary  to  add  some  comments  of  a  more 
general  character. 

It  will  be  noted  first  of  all  that  this  definition 
is  not  intended  to  aid  in  secularizing  the  church. 
Far  from  it.  It  is  designed  to  spiritualize  it, 
to  safeguard  it  from  ineffective  attempts  to 
rival  some  other  agency  better  fitted  for  certain 
tasks,  to  rescue  it  from  trivial  activities  that 
too  often  absorb  its  energies.  It  is  inclusive 
of  righteousness,  because  no  worthy  ideals  for 
personal  or  neighborhood  development  would 
ever  be  unmoral.  It  implies  the  coming  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  both  within  the  hearts  of 
men  and  women  and  as  a  social  reahty.     Those 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   83 

who  emphasize  the  need  for  personal  salvation, 
those  who  enjoy  the  great  value  of  the  church 
as  a  medium  of  worship  need  not  fear  the 
results  of  church  work  under  this  motive.  It 
does  not  exclude  the  idea  of  unworldliness — 
ideaHsm  is  always  unworldliness.  As  Pro- 
fessor Cooley  says : 

All    real    religion   has   its    unworldly    side 

There  is  no  prospect  that  the  world  will  ever  satisfy 
us,  and  the  structure  of  life  is  forever  incomplete  with- 
out something  to  satisfy  the  need  of  the  spirit  for  ideas 
and  sentiments  that  transcend  and  reconcile  all  par- 
ticular aims  whatsoever.^ 

By  no  means  would  we  exclude  the  oppor- 
tunity for  the  weary  soul  to  fold  its  wings  be- 
neath the  altar  and  hear  words  of  peace  and 
solace. 

Moreover  this  statement  of  the  work  of  the 
country  church  implies  some  considerations 
vital  to  country  life  reconstruction  that  are 
not  always  set  down  in  church  programs,  but 
which  the  church  can  foster  more  fully  than 
can  any  other  agency.  For  I  read  into  this 
function  of  the  church  such  things  as  these: 

I.  Teaching  people  that  personal  growth  and 
enlargement,  along  right  lines,  is  a  religious 

^  Cooley,  Social  Organization,  380. 


84  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

duty.  The  church  is  apt  to  preach  the  thought 
that  we  are  all  miserable  sinners,  which  of 
course  most  of  us  are;  but  to  leave  under- 
emphasized  the  dignity  of  the  human  soul,  with 
its  great  tasks  to  perform. 

2.  The  glorification  of  toil.  The  work  of 
the  farm  is  hard,  too  hard  for  most.  It  needs 
better  direction — less  of  slavishness  in  it.  It 
needs  idealizing.  To  idealize  it,  we  must  un- 
lock that  vast  mine  of  poetry  stored  up  in  the 
land.  This  poetry  was  cultivated  in  the  days 
of  hand  work  and  group  work,  but  has  largely 
passed  with  the  advent  of  machinery  and 
solitary  labor.  We  need  a  renaissance  of  farm 
poetry,  wrought  out  of  the  farm  itself  and 
worked  into  the  imaginations  of  land-toilers,  as 
a  permanent  and  joy-giving  possession.  This 
farm  poetry  cannot  be  anything  else  than 
essentially  religious,  for  it  is  born  of  the  sense 
of  working  with  God  himself  for  the  service  of 
fellow-men,  and  for  the  upbuilding  of  personal 
character. 

3.  A  love  for  the  rural  environment  will 
follow  this  idealization  of  toil.  A  permanently 
successful  rural  life  cannot  exist  except  through 
the  love  of  the  farm  people  for  the  land  and 
what  goes  with  it.     Industrial   success  is  of 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH      85 

course  the  first  term  in  the  formula  for  keeping 
the  people  on  the  land;  but  the  second  term  is 
equally  important,  love  for  the  life  and  work 
of  the  farm.  The  church  can  do  much  to  culti- 
vate this  love  for  rural  life,  not  by  telling 
people  that  they  ought  to  love  it,  but  by  lead- 
ing them  to  the  fountains  of  appreciation. 
The  ministry  to  character  through  this  atti- 
tude of  mind  is  far  reaching  and  abiding. 

4.  The  passion  for  justice.  The  labor  move- 
ment today  is  at  bottom  an  attempt  to  realize 
justice  between  men.  Its  efforts  are  often 
crude  and  unjust,  but  its  spirit  is  ethical  and 
even  religious.  Now,  our  farmers  have  at 
times  felt  the  same  pressure  of  injustice — and 
many  of  them  do  today.  This  is  a  normal  sen- 
timent. It  should  deliberately  be  given  a 
religious  content  by  the  church  and  directed 
into  moral  expressions.  The  farmers  do  not 
get  their  due  today  as  a  class — for  instance,  in 
legislation.  It  is  good  religion  to  tune  their 
minds  to  a  realization  of  true  justice — justice 
to  them  from  the  state  and  other  classes — and 
from  them  to  other  classes  and  to  society  as  a 
whole. 

In  our  thought  today  the  social  problems  irresistibly 
take  the  lead.     If  the  church  has  no  live  and  bold 


86  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

thought  on  this  dominant  question  of  modern  life,  its 
teaching  authority  on  all  other  questions  will  dwindle 
and  be  despised.^ 

5.  A  community  goal.  We  need  a  clearer 
view  of  some  objective  point  toward  which  in- 
dividual and  community  interests  and  en- 
deavors may  be  directed.  Let  it  be  a  definite 
goal,  clean-cut  and  impressive  in  its  appeal. 
The  business  of  the  country  church  is  to  inter- 
pret the  kingdom  of  God  to  rural  people  in 
terms  of  their  daily  lives  and  daily  toil. 

SOME  FURTHER  ADVANTAGES  OF  THIS  STATE- 
MENT OF  THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE 
RURAL  CHURCH 

1.  It  recognizes  the  solidarity  of  the  rural 
problem  and  the  need  of  many  agencies  of  prog- 
ress. This  is  fundamental  to  all  clear  thinking 
about  rural  life.  It  is  peculiarly  important  as 
a  basis  for  large  work  on  the  part  of  any  great 
rural  institution. 

2.  It  differentiates  between  the  prime  func- 
tions of  the  various  great  social  institutions. 
It  assigns  large  tasks  that  are  distinct  parts 
of  an  interlaced  whole.  It  gives  work  that  is 
worth  doing.     It  is  practical  and  seeks  results. 

^  Rauschenbusch,  Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis,  339. 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH      87 

3.  It  relates  the  church  to  the  whole  move- 
ment for  rural  progress.  Thus  the  church  may 
have  an  opportunity  to  make  itself  felt  at  all 
points.  It  gives  religion  the  place  it  should 
have,  not  as  a  separate,  special  interest,  but  as 
a  motive  and  spirit  permeating  all  the  activities 
of  life. 

4.  It  specializes  the  function  of  the  church 
in  terms  of  the  spirit,  not  merely  in  terms  of 
specific  httle  tasks  or  of  method.  These 
specific  httle  tasks  must  be  performed,  and 
appropriate  methods  must  be  worked  out.  But 
the  abiding  thing  is  the  idea  of  what  is  to  be 
achieved.  Church  work  is  first  of  all  the  work 
of  the  spirit. 

5.  It  makes  the  church  a  servant  of  the 
whole  community  for  the  highest  ends  of  life. 
Too  often  church  m.embers  regard  the  church 
very  much  as  a  sort  of  private  club,  intended 
for  the  advantage  of  themselves  only,  and  select 
a  new  member  on  their  own  terms.  There 
is  no  objection  to  standards  of  admission  to 
church  membership.  Indeed  they  are  neces- 
sary. But  the  function  of  the  church  is  one 
of  service  to  the  whole  community,  not  merely 
to  the  little  group  who  form  the  church.  Any 
other  conception  of  the  church  is  deadening. 


88  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

One  reason  for  so  many  inefficient  churches 
today  is  the  prevalence  of  the  self-centered 
spirit.  Many  people  outside  the  church  can- 
not see  wherein  the  church  helps  them. 

6.  It  compels  the  church  to  outline  a  definite 
program  of  work  at  once  broad  and  specific, 
workable  and  inspiring,  suited  both  to  time 
and  to  eternity.  Indefiniteness  of  function 
accounts  in  large  measure  for  the  lack  of  power 
shown  by  many  churches. 

7.  It  is  elastic  enough  to  fit  any  church  and 
any  community,  for,  though  the  work  of  the 
church  be  one  work,  it  adapts  itself  to  the 
special  needs  of  each  individual  and  each  com- 
munity. Thus  the  church  becomes  "all  things 
to  all  men,"  but  with  the  one  hope  that  thereby 
it  ''might  by  all  means  save  some." 

THE   MINISTER   OF   THE   COUNTRY   CHURCH 

The  nature  of  the  work  of  the  country 
preacher  must  follow  the  work  of  the  church. 
His  task  is  to  make  the  church  ''function." 
If  its  work  is  broadened  by  our  ideas  of  what  it 
should  do,  he  must  enlarge  his  energies  to  meet 
the  demand.  If  it  means  narrowing  church 
activities,  he  must  choose  a  more  highly 
specialized  field  for  his  energies.     For  many 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   89 

reasons  I  like  the  reiteration  by  some  of  our 
clergymen  of  that  old  statement  of  their  work 
as  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter — ''To  preach 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ."  It  has  at  least  the 
merit  of  simplicity.  And  the  Pauline  motto, 
''This  one  thing  I  do,"  should  be  on  the  wall 
of  every  preacher's  study.  But  these  ecclesi- 
astical statements  of  the  preacher's  work,  just 
as  is  the  case  with  the  sociological  statement 
which  we  have  been  discussing,  must  be  inter- 
preted in  a  program  that  meets  the  real  situa- 
tion. Here  on  our  land  are  men  and  women 
at  work,  under  varying  conditions  of  intelli- 
gence, capacity,  interest;  with  mixed  motives, 
ambitions,  hopes;  with  needs  multitudinous — 
physical,  mental,  moral,  spiritual.  Here  are 
young  spirits  just  fluttering  uncertainly  into 
the  new  environment;  old  men  and  women 
bent  with  cares  and  disappointments;  young 
and  middle-aged  full  of  vigor  and  energy.  Here 
are  some  in  bondage  to  sins  of  the  body;  others 
in  travail  of  sorrow  and  suffering;  others  who 
are  blinded  by  passions  of  jealousy,  anger,  un- 
charitableness.  They  face  all  sorts  of  problems 
in  their  work.  They  have  to  work  under  a  set 
of  conditions  peculiar  to  the  business  of  farming 
and  to  life  in  a  rural  environment.     So  the 


90  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

country  pastor  needs  to  know  not  only  the 
cure  of  souls,  but  he  needs  to  appreciate  the 
environment.  More  than  all  that,  the  rural 
minister,  in  order  to  carry  out  the  real  work 
of  the  church,  should  understand  the  larger 
implications  of  the  work  and  life  of  the  farm. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  help  is  especially 
needed  by  the  people  of  the  country.  They 
are  beset  by  the  small  daily  individual  prob- 
lems; it  is  not  surprising  that  they  do  not 
always  see  the  great  currents  that  are  bearing 
them  on. 

Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  country 
preacher  is  to  be  a  leader  of  the  community. 
Possessing  intelligent  sympathy  with  his  people 
and  their  struggles,  he  yet  sees  what  many  of 
them  cannot  see  unaided — the  ultimate  problem 
and  goal.  He  is  no  blind  leader  of  the  blind, 
but  a  veritable  prophet  of  a  higher  and  better 
life — both  for  the  individual  and  for  the  com- 
munity. He  interprets  to  the  people  their 
highest  problems. 

There  is  danger  of  course  that  this  leadership 
may  be  frittered  away  in  trivial  matters.  Here 
is  the  most  difficult  task  of  the  rural  minister. 
He  must  be  practical,  he  must  not  be  above 
helpfulness  in  the  small  immediate  needs,  and 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH      91 

yet  he  must  keep  in  sight  of  the  vision,  the 
pillars  of  cloud  and  fire. 

His  leadership  is  after  all  in  setting  up  these 
ideals  of  personal  and  community  life.  They 
must  permeate  his  preaching  and  guide  his 
daily  ministrations.  He  must  idealize  farm 
work  and  country  life.  He  must  exploit  the 
possibilities  of  the  personal  life  lived  in  a  rural 
environment.  He  must  show  how  the  com- 
munity is  to  become  and  must  become  a  prov- 
ince in  the  kingdom  of  our  God. 

Nor  will  any  active  leadership  in  forwarding 
school,  Grange,  library,  good  roads,  or  what 
not,  cause  him  to  minimize  his  preaching. 
The  pulpit  is  after  all  his  fulcrum.  Here  he 
will  gather  up  his  experiences,  concentrate 
his  powers,  on  a  message  that  shall  be  at 
once  practical  and  inspiring. 

That  there  are  some  special  qualifications 
needed  by  the  minister,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  argue.  He  must  have,  first  of  all,  the  proper 
point  of  view — an  appreciation  of  the  rural 
problem,  its  nature,  importance,  and  the  prin- 
ciples underlying  its  solution.  It  is  not  enough 
that  he  merely  reads  about  such  matters,  but 
he  must  "think  on  these  things"  until  they  are 
worked  into  the  very  core  of  his  meditations. 


92  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

So  with  his  duties  within  the  church.  Neces- 
sarily his  time  and  energy  will  be  more  than 
absorbed  with  the  details  of  a  pressing  work, 
with  numberless  engagements  and  small  in- 
terests. But  in  all  this  detail  of  small  things, 
he  must  not  forget  the  main  task  of  the  church 
of  which  he  is  the  leader.  The  real  import  of 
his  task,  the  ultimate  meaning  of  his  efforts 
must  abide  in  his  mind  forever.  These  large 
views  will  enable  him  to  steer  his  course  be- 
tween the  rocks  of  petty  circumstance  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  sands  of  dreamy  impracti- 
cability on  the  other.  Moreover,  his  love  for 
rural  life  and  the  rural  people  must  be  genuine 
and  enthusiastic.  If  he  loves  the  sunset  over 
the  hills,  he  ought  to  see  it  and  get  others  to 
see  it.  If  the  click  of  the  mower  in  the  meadow 
is  music  to  his  ears,  he  should  Hsten  to  the 
music.  Is  it  a  poor  thing  to  ask  of  the  country 
clergy  that  they  shall  become  the  minnesingers 
of  a  richer,  more  romantic,  more  poetical  rural 
life  ?  I  think  it  a  task  very  much  after  God's 
own  heart. 

So  the  rural  clergyman  will  love  the  ways 
of  rural  folk.  He  will  enter  into  their  ex- 
periences, breathe  the  same  air  of  simpli- 
city   and    freedom,    respond    to    the    native 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH   93 

elements  of  rural  character,  understand  the 
rural  mind. 

I  am  aware  that  these  demands  upon  the 
country  preacher  require  special  talents.  They 
call  for  a  forceful,  virile  personality,  a  man 
among  men. 

I  think  that  they  also  require  special  training. 
The  clergyman  should  not  be  left  to  pick  this 
up  as  he  goes  along.  It  should  be  a  part  of  his 
preparation.     He  should  know  his  field. 

Hence  it  is  clear  that  a  somewhat  thorough 
study  of  the  subjects  that  would  throw  light 
upon  the  rural  problem  should  be  made  an 
essential  part  of  the  professional  training  for 
the  rural  ministry.  The  man  going  to  the  rural 
field  ought  to  possess  a  fair  knowledge  of  the 
main  problems  along  the  following  lines: 

A  broad  idea  of  some  one  or  more  of  the 
technical  fields  of  farming,  such  as  dairying, 
fruit-growling,  etc. 

The  outlines  of  farm  management  and  busi- 
ness control. 

The  large  economic  relationships  of  agricul- 
ture. 

The  social  aspects  of  rural  life,  and  the  social 
institutions  in  their  pecuHar  character,  such 
as  schools  and   means  of  agricultural  educa- 


94  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

tion,  government,  recreative  life,  organizations, 
etc. 

Finally  the  country  pastor  should  be  a  fixture 
— not  necessarily  in  one  parish.  But  there 
should  be  a  distinct  profession — the  country 
ministry.  It  should  command  the  services  of 
the  best  men.  It  should  have  an  esprit  du 
corps.  It  should  have  a  definite  program. 
It  should  have  a  literature  and  the  machinery 
for  frequent  conference  and  for  aggressive 
propaganda.  Let  there  be  then  an  organized 
movement  on  behalf  of  the  renaissance  of  the 
country  church. 

I  hold  that  the  problem  of  the  country  church 
is  the  most  important  aspect  of  the  rural  prob- 
lem. It  touches  the  highest  point  in  the  redirec- 
tion of  rural  life.  It  sounds  the  deepest  note  in 
the  harmonizing  of  the  factors  of  a  permanent 
rural  civilization.  It  speaks  the  most  eloquent 
v/ord  in  the  struggle  to  maintain  the  status  of 
the  farming  class.  Can  the  church  rise  to  its 
opportunities  ? 


IV 
DIFFICULTIES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

Thus  far  we  have  been  deliberately  discussing 
the  more  theoretical  aspects  of  the  relationships 
between  the  church  and  the  rural  problem. 
This  seemed  to  be  the  wisest  method  of  ap- 
proach, because  we  must  estabhsh  our  point 
of  view  before  we  can  do  the  most  effective 
concrete  work.     We  must  find  a  bottom  philos- 
ophy for  the  development  of  human  life  under 
rural  conditions,  and  an  equally  fundamental 
theory  respecting  the  work  of  the  church  as  a 
social  institution  in  those  communities.     There- 
fore we  have  endeavored  to  outline  the  main 
features  of  the  rural  problem;    to  state  the 
various  principles  of  socialization,  education, 
organization,  religious  ideaHsm,  and  federation 
of  forces,  necessary  to  the  solution  of  the  rural 
problem;    and  to  indicate  the  function  of  the 
church  in  the  light  of  this  analysis  of  the  prob- 
lem, and  in  harmony  with  the  approved  means 
of  amelioration. 

We  come  now  to  a  brief  discussion  of  some  of 
the  practical  questions  involved  in  the  work  of 

95 


96  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

the  church  in  the  rural  community.  It  is 
doubtful  wisdom  for  a  layman  to  essay  this 
task.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the  point 
of  view  of  the  layman  interested  in  the  larger 
social  aspects  of  rural  life,  when  applied  to  the 
concrete  work  of  the  church,  may  be  of  some 
value  in  assisting  clergymen  and  other  church 
leaders  to  orient  themselves  more  perfectly  than 
they  could  if  they  approached  their  problem 
only  through  the  conventional  vestibule  of 
ecclesiastical  thought  and  method. 

First  let  us  discuss  some  difficulties  that  face 
the  church  as  it  attempts  to  work  out  its  task 
in  the  rural  community.  We  may  divide  these 
into  two  classes — the  difficulties  with  respect 
to  the  church  as  an  institution,  and  those  special 
difficulties  that  meet  the  clergyman  in  the 
country  parish. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  there  are  too  many 
churches.  This  bald  statement  will  be  justly 
challenged  unless  qualified  by  counter  consider- 
ations such  as  these :  in  many  regions  there  are 
not  too  many  churches;  a  certain  amount  of  com- 
petition among  churches  is  conducive  to  health, 
and  acts  as  a  spur  to  ambition,  just  as  with 
other  institutions  or  with  individuals;  consider- 
ing the  part  which  sectarianism  has  played  in 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  97 

our  Protestant  church  Hfe,  it  is  too  much  to 
expect  that  these  differences  may  be  obHterated 
at  once  and  that  all  church  people  will  unite 
under  one  roof  and  banner;  it  may  also  be 
questioned  whether  the  old  New  England  idea 
of  one  church  for  the  town  is  either  practicable 
or  desirable.  But  the  general  proposition 
is  valid.  Rural  regions  as  a  rule  are  over- 
churched.  There  are  exaggerated  cases  of  this 
condition  observable  every^vhere,  as,  for  in- 
stance, when  four  or  five  small  struggHng 
churches  -exist  within  a  constituency  hardly 
large  enough  or  wealthy  enough  to  maintain 
more  than  one  strong  church.  That  there  are 
serious  evils  flowing  from  this  overchurching 
no  one  can  deny.  The  old  spirit  of  sectarian- 
ism is  kept  alive,  and  adventitious  causes  for 
this  separateness  and  exclusiveness  are  magni- 
fied beyond  all  reason,  until  sometimes  the  real 
spirit  and  purpose  of  the  church  are  well-nigh 
obliterated.  Competition  becomes  rivalry  that 
is  sometimes  highly  un- Christian.  The  church 
comes  to  emphasize  institutional  pride  and  suc- 
cess, rather  than  service  to  the  community. 
Indeed,  if  one  church  under  such  conditions 
sets  itself  up  to  become  a  servant  of  the  com- 
munity, it  immediately  encounters  the  jealousy 


98  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

of  other  churches,  who  ask,  ^'Who  commanded 
thee  to  be  a  ruler  over  us  ?" 

This  overchurching  results  also  in  meager 
financial  support.  The  problem  of  adequately 
financing  the  country  church  under  a  system  of 
voluntary  contributions  is  an  extremely  diffi- 
cult problem  at  best.  When  you  add  to  this 
natural  difficulty  the  necessity  of  keeping  up 
three  or  four  establishments  where  one  would 
answer,  and  then  add  to  this  again  the  modest 
financial  abihty  of  the  average  farm  community, 
you  have  a  condition  of  things  that  is  well-nigh 
hopeless. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  sectarianism  at 
its  worst,  or  perhaps  we  might  even  say  at  its 
best,  divides  the  energies  of  the  church  and 
mystifies  the  non-churchmen  who  might  be 
reached  by  the  simple  message  of  religion,  but 
who  cannot  quite  understand  the  '4sms"  of  the 
sects.  This  condition,  bad  enough  in  the  city, 
is  infinitely  worse  in  the  country.  Sectarianism 
is  far  more  divisive  in  the  country  than  in  the 
city,  for  a  very  simple  reason.  In  any  city  of, 
say,  15,000  people  or  more,  there  is  room  for 
practically  every  sect,  because  a  church  can 
draw  from  a  relatively  large  population,  even 
though  its  membership  may  be  scattered  all 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  99 

over  the  city.  But  in  a  small  country  commu- 
nity of  500  to  1,500  souls,  the  division  of  the 
church  into  different  groups  is  a  far  more 
serious  matter. 

II.  Another  difficulty  in  the  country  church 
is  the  great  danger  of  an  undue  development 
of  the  ''boss  system ''  in  church  management. 
I  suppose  this  is  a  danger  of  the  church  every- 
where— that  some  strong  personality  may 
dominate  because  of  wealth,  or  force  of  char- 
acter, or  social  position,  or  what  not;  but 
there  is  this  offsetting  situation — that  almost 
any  urban  church,  even  in  a  small  city,  is  likely 
to  have  a  fairly  full  quota  of  strong  men,  and  it 
is  much  more  difficult  for  one  or  two  men  to 
"run"  the  church.  But  I  think  it  is  not  an 
uncommon  phenomenon  that  some  vigorous 
individual,  one  among  a  few,  is  likely  to  domi- 
nate the  small  country  church.  It  would  be 
unfair  to  say  that  this  is  a  characteristic  situa- 
tion, but  it  exists  far  too  often.  And  when  we 
recall  the  innate  conservatism  of  the  country 
man,  we  have  a  combination  of  circumstances 
that  frequently  makes  it  almost  impossible 
for  an  ambitious  minister  to  do  anything 
worthy. 

III.  It  is  a  common  remark  that  during  the 


lOO  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

past  generation  the  church  has  suffered  in 
leadership  because  other  institutions  have  com- 
peted with  it  for  social  service.  I  doubt 
whether  this  condition  is  any  more  apparent 
in  the  country  than  in  the  city,  but  where  it 
does  exist  in  the  country,  it  is  more  disastrous. 
During  the  past  two  decades,  especially  in  the 
prosperous  communities  of  the  Middle  West, 
there  has  been  a  great  wave  of  ''fraternal" 
organization.  In  some  rural  communities  there 
is  a  meeting  of  some  association  practically 
every  night  in  the  week.  These  organizations 
not  only  compete  with  the  church  socially,  but 
they  absorb  time  and  energy  and  money  that 
might  otherwise,  in  part  at  least,  be  devoted  to 
the  church;  and  worst  of  all,  they  sometimes 
produce  the  impression  that,  so  far  as  human 
welfare  is  concerned,  they  are  almost  as  service- 
able as  the  church. 

IV.  Another  difficulty  with  the  country 
church,  already  alluded  to,  is  the  existence  of 
low  ideals  of  its  functions — more  particularly 
with  reference  to  its  relation  to  the  community. 
It  is  a  peril  confronting  every  social  institu- 
tion that  it  may  become  obsessed  with  its  own 
importance,  come  to  live  for  itself,  place  its 
emphasis  upon  its  own  growth,  ask  for  loyalty 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS        loi 

to  itself  for  its  own  sake.  Now,  it  is  good 
social  philosophy  that  any  permanent  social 
institution  must  have  not  only  an  excuse  for 
existence,  but  that  it  must  continue  to  justify 
itself,  by  constant  effective  service.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  practically  every  social 
agency  has  been  called  into  being  by  some  real 
need  and,  if  it  thrived,  was  found  to  answer 
to  that  need.  But  it  is  also  true  that,  as  soon 
as  a  social  institution  like  the  church  is  thor- 
oughly established  and  has  a  traditional  hold 
upon  the  imaginations  and  habits  of  people,  it  is 
tempted  to  lose  its  spirit  of  service,  and  to  live 
largely  unto  itself.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  rural  church  today  is  suffering  from 
institutionalism.  I  fear  that  the  ideal  of 
service  to  mankind,  irrespective  of  their  beliefs 
or  morals,  but  wholly  with  respect  to  their  need, 
has  become  a  lost  art  among  country  churches; 
and  I  do  not  look  for  the  church  to  attain  its 
rightful  place  until  it  shows  its  capacity  to 
become  the  servant  of  the  need  of  humankind. 
It  would  of  course  be  unfair  to  say  that  the 
average  church  has  sunk  so  low  that  this  pur- 
pose of  service  is  entirely  absent.  I  think  it  is 
fair  to  say  that  the  ideal  for  church  work  and 
service  is  on  a  low  plane  in  the  average  com- 


I02    CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

munity,  and  largely  because  the  church  is  so 
generally  regarded  as  an  ark  of  safety  for  those 
who  are  wise  enough,  or  righteous  enough,  to  be 
admitted;  instead  of  being,  as  it  ought  to  be, 
an  institution  that  organizes  the  spirit  of  human 
brotherhood  under  the  leadership  of  the  Master 
of  life,  for  the  redemption  of  the  bodies  and 
minds  and  hearts  of  men  from  the  bondage  of 
appetite  and  passion,  and  that  ministers  to  the 
abiding  need  of  all  human  souls  for  worship  of 
the  divine  and  for  the  renewal  of  faith  in  the 
things  that  are  eternal.  Doubtless  the  church- 
men will  say  at  once  that  this  is  precisely  the 
whole  purpose  of  the  church.  Unquestionably 
it  is.  But  go  into  any  average  farm  community 
and  watch  the  actual  workings  of  church  life 
from  year  to  year.  Will  you  find  the  ideal 
working  out  ?  Will  you  even  find  the  ideal  held 
by  the  rank  and  file  of  the  membership?  Let 
us  frankly  face  the  situation;  let  us  realize  the 
need  of  a  higher  and  broader  ideal  for  the  actual 
work  of  the  church  as  a  local  institution. 

V.  Another  difficulty  that  confronts  the 
country  church  is  the  ease  with  which  religion 
is  separated  from  life.  There  is  no  need  of 
dwelling  on  this  point.  It  is  a  universal 
difficulty,  and  one  that  men  and  women  have 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS        103 

to  face  every  day  in  their  personal  lives.  The 
church  has  to  face  it.  And  yet  it  may  be  that 
the  church  is  somewhat  to  blame  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  difficulty,  because  sometimes  the 
preaching  of  the  church  seems  to  mark  off  that 
phase  of  life  which  is  religious  from  that  phase 
which  is  secular;  whereas  life  is  really  a  unity, 
and  the  great  question  is  not  properly  to  pigeon- 
hole our  quaUties,  but  to  motive  all  our  activi- 
ties on  the  highest  lines. 

VI.  As  over  against  this  narrow  idea  of 
religion  there  is  another  difficulty,  growing  out 
of  the  effort  to  remedy  this  narrowness:  that 
the  church  may  attempt  things  not  promotive 
of  rehgious  life,  or  at  least  may  expend  its  chief 
energies  upon  unimportant  matters.  A  church 
supper  is  a  perfectly  valid  institution.  Money 
must  be  raised,  and  the  church  supper  helps  to 
raise  it.  It  brings  the  church  members  together 
in  good-fellowship,  and  it  has  many  other  ad- 
vantages. But  how  pitiful  when  activities  like 
these  become  the  sum  total  of  "church  work." 

THE   COUNTRY  CLERGYMAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

Let  us  now  discuss  some  of  the  special  diffi- 
culties that  confront  the  minister  of  the  country 
church. 


I04  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

I.  The  first  difficulty  that  shall  be  named  is 
that  which  strikes  at  the  very  root  of  the  coun- 
try church  problem — the  small  salaries  that 
are  paid  to  country  clergymen  as  a  whole. 
There  is  no  body  of  men  deserving  of  greater 
praise  than  the  ministers  of  the  church,  who  in 
all  times  and  in  all  places  have  sacrificed  high 
ambitions,  sometimes  great  positions  and  the 
hope  of  gain,  for  the  sake  of  their  work.  The 
Jesuit  father,  the  home  and  foreign  mission- 
ary, the  pastor  of  the  small  flock  in  the  little 
country  community  have  been  men  of  courage, 
self-sacrifice,  and  devotion  beyond  all  praise. 
They  are  sensitive  of  any  comment  that  might 
imply  that  they  desire  to  bring  about  a  situa- 
tion where  financial  reward  may  seem  to  play 
a  chief  part  in  their  lives.  It  is  a  serious  criti- 
cism of  the  church  that  it  has  permitted  the 
present  condition  of  affairs  to  continue.  The 
average  salary  paid  to  our  country  ministers  is 
shamefully  low,  disgracefully  inadequate.  It 
is  often  not  sufficient  to  maintain  a  respectable 
standard  of  physical  living,  to  say  nothing 
about  books,  travel,  college  education  for  boys 
and  girls.  In  an  era  when  the  average  family 
expenditure  is  constantly  increasing,  the  salaries 
of  country  clergymen  have  remained  stationary. 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS        105 

Of  course  the  prevalence  of  small  churches  is 
largely  responsible  for  the  difficulty.  Perhaps 
the  rural  mind  also  has  something  to  do  with  it. 
Country  people  sometimes  feel  that  the  clergy- 
man is  earning  all  that  he  is  worth.  This  may 
not  be  fair  to  the  clergyman,  but  it  certainly  is 
the  view  not  infrequently  held.  Then,  too,  the 
average  countryman  has  an  exaggerated  notion 
of  the  power  of  salary.  The  farmer  gets  so 
large  a  proportion  of  his  living  incidentally  and 
by  the  way,  through  his  dairy,  his  garden,  his 
orchard,  that  he  has  not  the  slightest  concep- 
tion of  the  drafts  made  upon  the  treasury  of 
the  salaried  man  by  rent,  fuel,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  purchasing  all  supplies.  When  this  trait 
of  the  countryman  is  reinforced  by  a  natural 
aversion  to  spend  money  to  support  a  pastor 
who  might,  perchance,  if  his  salary  were  larger, 
have  a  little  better  '^  table,"  buy  a  little  better 
furniture,  wear  a  little  better  clothes,  than  the 
other  people  in  the  community,  you  have  a 
situation  that  it  is  rather  hard  to  overcome. 
But  the  bottom  fact  is  that  the  salaries  of 
country  clergymen  are  ridiculously  low.  The 
church  has  no  right  to  ask  its  leaders  to  serve 
under  such  conditions. 

II.  Another  difficulty  is  the  small  field,  with 


io6  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

widely  scattered  parishioners.  Of  course  it  is 
possible  for  a  clergyman  thoroughly  to  culti- 
vate a  small  field.  Intensive  parish  work  is 
perhaps  as  desirable  as  intensive  farming.  But 
in  the  average  rural  community  the  oppor- 
tunities for  building  things  up,  for  progress, 
for  carrying  out  ambitious  plans,  for  making 
things  ''go,"  for  bringing  things  to  pass,  are 
often  meager,  discouragingly  meager.  Turn  an 
ambitious  man  loose  into  the  average  country 
community,  and  what  can  he  do  ?  Sometimes 
he  can  do  a  great  deal,  if  he  have  tact  and 
patience.  But  the  limitations  growing  out  of 
the  size  of  the  parish,  the  number  of  people 
to  be  reached,  the  financial  resources  with 
which  to  man  the  guns,  are  abiding  and 
serious. 

III.  The  isolation  of  the  country  is  a  serious 
difficulty  to  the  average  country  clergyman. 
His  family  is  somewhat  isolated;  he  himself  is 
isolated  from  pastors  of  his  own  denomination. 
He  has  not  easy  access  as  a  rule  to  libraries 
and  to  books.  He  may  go  occasionally  to 
church  conventions,  but  he  has  to  live  his  life 
very  much  alone,  from  a  professional  point 
of  view.  When  this  isolation  is  added  to  other 
discouragements  of  the  situation,  it  is  not  much 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS        107 

wonder  that  he  eagerly  accepts  a  call  to  the 
city. 

IV.  It  would  be  a  slander  on  country  clergy- 
men to  say  that  as  a  class  they  are  indolent, 
although  students  of  the  subject  have  some- 
times said  that  they  are  more  apt  to  be  indolent 
than  they  ought  to  be.  Doubtless  it  is  easy 
for  the  country  clergyman  to  become  indolent. 
Most  men  need  constant  stimulus  to  do  their 
best  work.  The  quiet  of  the  country,  the  lack 
of  social  friction,  the  isolation  from  other 
pastors,  the  small  size  of  the  parish,  the  diffi- 
culty of  doing  new  things  and  large  things 
tempt  a  man  to  settle  back  into  the  seat,  to  let 
the  reins  slacken,  to  put  the  whip  in  the  socket, 
and  to  allow  the  horse  to  jog  at  its  own  pace. 
That  the  majority  of  country  ministers  do  not 
take  this  attitude  is  a  tribute  to  their  high 
purposes. 

V.  The  question  of  preparation  for  work  in 
the  country  parish  offers  a  difficulty  of  con- 
siderable proportions.  We  now  ask  our  coun- 
try clergymen,  at  least  in  New  England,  and 
to  a  large  degree  all  over  the  North,  to  take  a 
college  course,  followed  by  a  seminary  course  of 
three  years,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  per- 
haps, to  "settle  down"  at  a  salary  of  $600  or 


Io8  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

$800  a  year.  We  require  thorough  scholarship, 
an  acquaintance  of  wide  range  with  philosophy, 
literature,  science,  theology,  history.  The 
dangers  proceeding  from  an  ignorant  ministry 
need  no  elucidation.  A  suggestion  that  the 
scholarship  standards  for  admission  to  the 
country  parish  should  be  lowered  would  doubt- 
less be  met  with  disapproval.  I  am  not  going 
to  propose  such  a  course.  The  question,  how- 
ever, is  inevitable :  Are  you  not  asking  what  is 
next  to  impossible  when  you  attempt  to  train 
a  large  body  of  men  for  a  permanent  country 
ministry,  under  existing  conditions,  with  the 
expenditure  of  time  and  money  now  required, 
and  with  salaries  continuing  at  the  present 
standards  ? 

But  a  far  more  important  question  is  this: 
Are  you  really  preparing  men  for  the  country 
ministry?  Do  the  seminary  graduates  go  to 
I  the  country  parish  with  the  intention  of  making 
J  it  a  life  work?  When  they  do  go,  do  they 
understand  the  problems  of  the  community? 
Do  they  know  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
people  ?  We  have  put  a  pretty  serious  burden 
upon  the  man  who  is  to  serve  the  country 
parish.  How  to  induce  the  young  clergyman 
to  make  country  church  work  his  life  work,  how 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS        log 

to  prepare  him  for  that  work  so  that  he  shall 
go  to  it  with  clear  insight,  is  to  my  mind  a 
difficulty  of  extreme  significance. 

VI.  The  final  difficulty  that  I  see  with  respect 
to  the  country  clergyman  is  that  if  he  becomes 
a  community  leader,  as  he  ought,  he  may 
scatter  his  energies.  His  task  is  to  understand 
the  work  of  the  church  in  the  light  of  the  total 
rural  problem.  He  must  be  a  student  of  large 
affairs.  He  must  know  his  community— the 
people,  the  industries,  the  social  life  as  expressed 
in  school,  lodge,  and  family.  He  cannot 
neglect  his  professional  study.  All  this  means 
hard,  untiring  work.  One  may  easily  become 
superficial. 

SUGGESTIONS 

The  title  of  this  chapter  is  ''Difficulties 
and  Suggestions."  We  have  dwelt  somewhat 
strongly,  perhaps  too  strongly,  upon  the  diffi- 
culties. The  suggestions  that  are  to  follow 
must  be  put  very  briefly.  It  is  not  supposed 
that  they  will  meet  all  the  difficulties  that  con- 
front the  average  country  church  or  its  clergy- 
man. It  is  a  hope  that  they  may  offer  some 
thoughts  for  a  constructive  policy  that  wtII  ap- 
ply to  the  work  of  the  local  church  in  the  av- 
erage rural  community. 


no  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

I.  First  of  all,  I  must  strongly  urge  the  study 
of  the  country  church  problem  by  the  semi- 
naries, and  by  various  church  organizations. 
It  is  a  misfortune  that  there  does  not  exist  a 
clearing-house  like  the  Federal  Commission 
on  Country  Life,  or  some  privately  founded 
institution,  with  money  enough  and  genius 
enough  to  make  a  thorough  study  of  the  coun- 
try church  problem  the  nation  over.  In  the 
absence  of  such  a  desideratum,  the  most  that 
can  be  done — and  much  can  be  done — must  be 
performed  through  existing  denominational  or 
educational  agencies.  The  Presbyterian  Board 
of  Home  Missions  has  already  taken  up  a 
systematic  study  of  rural  church  conditions, 
and,  in  fact,  has  followed  the  initiation  of  this 
investigation  by  holding  a  short  series  of  meet- 
ings or  conferences  on  the  rural  church  prob- 
lem, in  which  other  churches  are  asked  to 
participate.  We  first  need  to  know  the  facts, 
to  know  what  the  real  problems  are.  The  mere 
study  of  the  situation  at  once  suggests  remedies, 
gives  stimulus  to  new  work,  fires  the  imagina- 
tion with  new  possibiKties,  and  starts  a  chain  of 
human  effort  for  improving  the  situation.  Let 
us  have  then  a  comprehensive  field  study  of 
the  actual  problem  of  the  country  church. 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS       m 

II.  Inaugurate  a  definite  movement  for  the 
special  preparation  of  young  men  for  a  career 
in  the  country  parish.  This  task  belongs  to 
the  seminaries  and  colleges  together.  A  single 
seminary  can  do  something;  a  single  college 
can  do  something;  but  we  cannot  hope  to  make 
a  very  large  impression  unless  there  shall  be 
developed  a  general  movement  which  shall  seek 
to  standardize,  to  a  degree  at  least,  the  type 
of  preparation  for  this  particular  work.  So 
far  the  need  of  this  preparation  has  never  been 
fully  recognized.  It  is  not  going  to  be  easy  to 
bring  this  about.  Different  sections  of  the 
country  have  different  ideals  of  the  ministry. 
But  if  nothing  more  should  come  of  it  than  a 
clear  recognition  that  the  candidate  for  the 
rural  parish,  in  addition  to  the  conventional 
preparation  of  the  minister,  does  need  some 
special  study  which  shall  bring  him  to  appre- 
ciate the  real  needs  of  the  rural  people,  not 
alone  in  spiritual  but  in  the  industrial  and 
social  spheres  as  well,  any  effort  put  forth  in 
this  direction  will  have  been  well  worth  while. 

At  the  risk  of  seeming  to  speak  as  a  partisan 
of  a  particular  type  of  educational  institution, 
I  venture  to  suggest  that  the  agricultural  col- 
leges may  also  be  invited  by  theological  semi- 


112  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

naries  and  church  schools  to  co-operate  in 
preparing  men  for  church  work  in  our  rural 
communities.  Doubtless  seminaries  and  church 
schools  could  add  courses  in  rural  sociology  and 
agricultural  economics,  and  possibly  even  in 
technical  agriculture,  but  it  is  a  serious  ques- 
tion whether  many  of  them  will  want  to  go 
very  far  along  these  lines;  besides,  ''atmos- 
phere" has  a  good  deal  to  do  with  sound  edu- 
cation, and  the  atmosphere  of  a  well-managed 
agricultural  college  ought,  of  itself,  to  be  con- 
ducive to  interest  in  the  problems  of  rural  life. 
Would  it  not  help  if  candidates  for  the  country 
ministry  should  be  permitted  and  encouraged, 
and  possibly  in  some  cases  even  required,  to 
take  more  or  less  work  at  a  well-equipped  agri- 
cultural college,  as  a  part  of  their  regular  prep- 
aration for  the  rural  parish?  It  is  perfectly 
possible  for  agricultural  colleges  to  offer  such 
courses  in  elementary  agriculture  and  farm 
management,  in  agricultural  education  and 
organization,  in  agricultural  economics,  rural 
sociology,  and  rural  government,  that  a  man 
in  one  semester,  perhaps — although  a  year 
would  be  better — would  gain  a  fairly  compre- 
hensive knowledge  of  the  wide  general  prob- 
lems that  the  farmers  have  to  face.     If  that  is 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS       113 

impossible,  a  summer-school  course  of  a  few 
weeks  would  do  a  great  deal  toward  giving  a 
young  man  possession  of  the  general  philos- 
ophy of  the  rural  problem,  and  a  command  of 
the  literary  sources  of  further  study. 

III.  Develop  systematic,  organized  effort  on 
behalf  of  a  more  useful  country  church.  There 
has  been  organized  in  our  midst  a  New  England 
Country  Church  Association.  One  cannot  pre- 
dict the  possibilities  of  its  growth,  but  it  em- 
bodies an  idea  of  primary  significance,  namely, 
that  the  problem  that  faces  the  country  church 
is  sufficiently  important  and  unique  to  demand 
special  attention,  and  to  give  point  to  an  organ- 
ization which  seeks  to  unite  all  who  may  be 
interested  in  the  solution  of  the  one  special 
problem.  Church  conferences,  frequent  and 
regular  institutes  for  country  pastors,  and 
many  other  devices  can  be  instituted  as  a 
part  of  the  machinery  for  this  work.  Let  it 
be  a  part  of  this  widely  organized  campaign 
on  behalf  of  the  country  church  to  develop 
a  program  for  the  church  situated  in  the 
rural  community,  a  program  that  is  at  once 
definite,  broad,  scientific,  practical,  spiritual. 
Thus  well-planned  experiments  may  be  tried 
under  varying  conditions.      Make    the  work 


114  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

of  the  country  church  a  Hve,  aggressive 
work. 

IV.  Encourage  the  federation  of  churches. 
The  movement  for  the  federation  of  churches 
will  grow  slowly,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case.  All  the  logic  of  the  situation  and  of 
common-sense  is  on  the  side  of  federation. 
But  it  has  to  face  tradition,  prejudice,  senti- 
ment, financial  obligations.  It  is,  however,  a 
fundamental  article  in  a  country  church  pro- 
gram. 

Subsidiary  to  this  general  idea  of  federation 
are  the  following  suggestions:  If  actual  church 
union  is  out  of  the  question,  or  the  abolition 
of  extraneous  churches,  let  there  be  co-opera- 
tion for  practical  work  in  the  community.  If 
churches  cannot  unite  organically,  can  they  not 
unite  for  service  ?  Why  should  not  the  church 
present  a  solid  phalanx  in  any  community  on 
behalf  of  its  intrinsic  work  ?  It  can  at  the  very 
least  unite  for  a  thorough  study  of  the  interests 
and  of  the  conditions  that  go  to  make  up  the 
community  problem.  Why  not  have  common 
meetings  for  the  discussion  of  fundamental 
moral  and  spiritual  issues  of  the  community? 
Why  not  come  to  an  agreement  in  regard  to 
the  way  in  which  evils  may  be  met,  or  inspira- 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         115 

tion  for  the  higher  Hfe  be  given  ?  The  pitiful 
thing  about  our  sectarianism  is  not  so  much 
that  the  church  is  broken  up  into  many  separate 
units,  but  that  this  disunity  of  organization 
results  in  religious  inefficiency.  Possibly  a 
further  development  of  this  co-operation  may 
bring  us  eventually  to  a  sort  of  division  of 
labor  in  the  community,  so  that  specialized 
work  is  laid  out,  not  for  a  particular  church 
alone,  but  for  the  community.  Earnest  men 
have  advocated  the  idea  of  so  federating  the 
work  of  the  churches  that  special  leaders  for 
boys'  work,  for  child-saving,  the  employment  of 
deaconesses,  and  so  on,  may  become  a  char- 
acteristic feature  of  the  rural  church  machinery. 
How  far  this  is  practicable  remains  to  be  seen, 
but  at  any  rate  it  is  worth  while  to  suggest  that 
co-operation  be  tried  far  enough  to  see  if  expert 
service  may  not  be  rendered  through  the  com- 
mon efforts  of  all  the  churches  of  the  com- 
munity, even  though  each  retain  absolutely  its 
own  entity.  Of  course  federation  means  ulti- 
mately the  aboHtion  of  unnecessary  churches. 
In  the  language  of  one  of  its  leaders,  there 
should  be  neither  ''overlapping"  nor  ''over- 
looking," but  each  church  should  be  responsible 
for  some  given  territory,  and  the  work  must  be 


Ii6  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

SO  divided  that  a  systematic  attempt  shall  be 
made  to  reach  every  individual.  This  may 
sometimes  result  in  having  one  church  in  the 
community;  it  may  not.  It  ought  to  result, 
however,  in  a  condition  where  the  church  pre- 
sents a  united  front  in  carrying  out  its  real 
function.  Indeed,  church  federation  means 
not  merely  the  amalgamation  of  churches,  but, 
even  more  emphatically,  the  co-operation  of 
separate  churches  for  great  community  ends. 
As  this  same  leader  has  so  well  said,  ''We  must 
have  consolidation  somewhere,  co-operation 
everywhere.''^ 

V.  Another  important  consideration  that 
comes  very  close  to  this  idea  of  federation  is 
that  the  church  shall  make  full  use  of  its  natural 
allies,  such  as  the  Young  People's  Society  and 
the  Sunday  school.  In  this  connection,  I  wish 
to  speak  a  strong  word  on  behalf  of  the  rural 
work  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion. The  church  at  large  is  not  reaching 
young  men  in  the  country  districts.  The 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  has  the 
machinery,  the  experience,  the  purpose,  and 
the  enthusiasm  to  accomplish  this  all-important 

^Rev.  E.  T.  Root,  field  secretary  of  the  Rhode  Island  and 
Massachusetts  Federations  of  Churches. 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         117 

end.  Every  encouragement  should  be  given 
by  pastors  and  others  for  the  development  of 
this  work  in  the  rural  community.  Unfor- 
tunately, clergymen  sometimes  feel  jealous  of 
this  work,  and  perhaps  their  attitude  is  occa- 
sionally justifiable  in  the  light  of  unwise  efforts 
that  may  be  made.  But  in  some  way,  this 
great  power  for  good  must  be  tied  up  with 
the  interests  of  the  church.  The  Y.M.C.A. 
should  regard  itself  as  a  specialized  organ  of 
the  church,  and  there  should  be  the  closest 
co-operation  and  harmony  in  their  work. 
The  same  plea  may  be  made  on  behalf  of  the 
rural  work  of  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association. 

VI.  The  development  of  lay  leadership  in 
the  rural  community  is  a  matter  of  very  large 
consequence  in  country  church  work.  It  is 
not  so  much  that  the  country  church  lacks 
men  and  women  who  will  do  the  church  work 
as  they  understand  it,  as  that  if  the  country 
church  is  to  fulfil  the  function  which  we  have 
assigned  to  it,  if  the  country  clergyman  is  to  be 
the  leader  in  the  community  that  he  ought  to 
be,  we  must  have  a  group  of  laymen  who  also 
know  the  large  rural  problem,  who  understand 
the  elements  of  its  solution,  and  who  appre- 


Ii8  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

ciate  the  real  place  of  the  church.  Here  is 
another  opportunity  for  the  agricultural  colleges 
and  agricultural  schools  to  help  train  men  who 
will  go  back  to  the  farm,  and  there  not  only 
make  a  success  of  the  business  of  farming,  but 
also  throw  themselves  into  community  leader- 
ship. Heretofore,  agricultural  colleges  have 
not  fulfilled  their  obligations  in  this  respect. 
They  are  beginning  to  see  their  duty  now,  and 
are  offering  courses  which  will  encourage  men 
while  in  college  to  make  a  study  of  the  rural 
problem,  and  to  become  leaders  in  community 
service  when  they  return  to  the  farm. 

To  develop  lay  support  for  twentieth-cen- 
tury country  church  work  means  also  that 
local  pastors,  general  church  societies,  and 
leaders  in  the  church  everywhere  must  organize 
a  definite  plan  for  discussing  with  laymen  the 
leading  features  of  this  reorganized  church 
service.  Clergymen  must  lead.  But  the  laity 
finally  decides  the  issues.  Close  co-operation, 
intelligent  sympathy,  clear  appreciation  there 
must  be  between  the  minister  and  the  parish- 
ioner. The  farmer  himself  should  have  the 
direct  help  of  the  church  in  his  desire  to  under- 
stand the  relation  of  the  church  to  the  rural 
problem. 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         119 

VII.  There  must  be  a  larger  financial  sup- 
port. This  brings  us  to  one  of  the  most 
difficult  questions,  one  of  the  most  complicated 
problems,  that  the  country  church  has  to  face. 
Two  principles  may  be  applied  at  this  point. 
The  first  principle  is  that  of  developing  more 
completely  local  support.  A  series  of  ques- 
tions recently  sent  out  bearing  on  this  matter 
brought  answers  which  seemed  to  indicate  that 
the  average  farm  community  is  quite  competent 
to  support  the  average  country  church,  if  it 
would.  But  for  many  reasons,  some  of  which 
have  been  discussed  already,  this  community 
support  is  not  forthcoming.  The  church  is 
supported  by  the  few,  and  sometimes  not  even 
adequately  supported  by  its  own  members. 
As  a  matter  of  self -protection,  the  church  might 
well  encourage  any  large  community  service, 
because  such  service  w^ould  eventually  assist  in 
bringing  to  the  church  a  wider  range  of  gifts. 
A  reduction  in  the  number  of  churches  would, 
in  many  places,  entirely  solve  this  question  of 
local  support;  in  others,  enlarged  community 
interest  is  the  only  solution;  in  still  others,  a 
new  standard  of  giving  by  church  members 
must  be  developed. 

The  second  principle  is  based  upon  the  belief 


120  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

that  while  a  great  many  rural  communities 
can  support  their  own  churches  without  ex- 
ternal aid,  a  very  large  number  can  never  hope 
to  do  this.  It  has  been  accepted  as  a  prin- 
ciple among  our  leaders  in  education  that  for 
education  purposes  the  wealth  of  the  whole 
state  must  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  all  the 
youth  of  the  state.  A  somewhat  similar  prin- 
ciple must  be  recognized  in  trying  to  solve  the 
financial  problem  of  the  rural  church:  the 
wealth  of  the  whole  church  must  in  some  way  he 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  whole  church.  The 
wealth  concentrates  in  cities.  They  have  tasks 
of  their  own  that  draw  upon  their  resources;  at 
the  same  time,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  and  as  a 
matter  of  self-protection  and  self-interest  on 
the  part  of  the  cities,  no  community,  however 
small  and  isolated,  should  be  allowed  to  relapse 
either  into  ignorance  or  into  paganism,  and  if  the 
small  isolated  community  cannot  sustain  itself, 
it  must,  temporarily  at  least,  have  outside  aid. 
There  are  perhaps  four  ways  in  which  this 
outside  aid  may  be  given.  The  first  is  the  most 
common  one — that  of  aid  from  a  central 
denominational  home  missionary  society.  The 
second  is  an  endowment  of  individual  churches. 
The  third  is  an  endowment,  or  some  special 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         I2i 

appropriation,  made  by  a  particular  denomina- 
tion, to  aid  the  rural  churches  in  that  denomina- 
tion. The  fourth  is  a  general  endowment  for 
the  rural  church  as  such,  irrespective  of  denomi- 
national lines. 

With  respect  to  the  first  plan  of  financing  the 
rural  church,  home  missionary  aid,  I  confess 
that  it  seems  invidious  to  put  into  the  same 
category  a  "mission"  to  the  savages  of  Africa, 
to  the  almost  equally  uncivilized  men  in  a 
frontier  mining  camp,  and  to  the  little  white 
church  set  on  a  hill  in  the  midst  of  a  scattered 
and  "poor  but  honest"  country  folk,  kin  of 
the  best  blood  of  Puritan  or  Cavaher. 

Endowments  for  individual  churches,  given 
by  men  and  women  of  means,  may  well  be 
encouraged.  Two  possible  dangers  from  this 
form  of  aid  are  to  be  noted,  however :  Endowed 
churches  may  fail  to  put  forth  adequate  effort  for 
self-support;  endowment  unwisely  placed  may 
permanently  establish  a  church  that  is  really 
superfluous  and  that  ought  to  be  eliminated. 

An  endowment  or  aid  fund  specifically  for 
country  churches,  made  by  each  denomina- 
tion, would  at  least  dignify  the  position  of  the 
country  church  receiving  aid,  express  the  obli- 
gations of  the  church  as  a  whole  to  use  its 


122  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

wealth  in  behalf  of  the  smaller  and  weaker 
churches,  and  at  once  give  point  to  a  country- 
church  movement  or  campaign. 

A  general  endowment  fund  for  the  rural 
church,  to  be  given  irrespective  of  denomina- 
tional lines,  and  under  the  guidance  of  a  broad 
policy  of  determining  community  needs,  is  a 
magnificent  conception,  and  if  it  could  be  real- 
ized would  at  once  inaugurate  a  new  era  for 
the  rural  church.  But  it  would  take  an 
enormous  endowment  for  a  really  adequate 
support.  It  v/ould  require  a  knowledge  of  the 
field  amounting  almost  to  omniscience,  and  a 
capacity  for  reconciliation  of  sectarian  differ- 
ences, combined  with  administrative  talent, 
approaching  genius. 

This  matter  of  financial  support  is  of  course 
fundamental,  and  any  attempt  really  to  get 
at  the  question  must  mean  a  plan  of  organiza- 
tion which  will  have  far-reaching  consequences 
in  all  phases  of  country  church  work.  Con- 
versely, it  is  doubtful  if  any  scheme  designed  to 
organize  or  correlate  country  church  activities 
can  meet  the  full  need  of  the  situation,  unless 
it  includes  some  remedy  for  the  present  financial 
difficulties  in  rural  church  enterprises.  So  im- 
portant is  the  problem,  so  difficult  its  solution, 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         123 

SO  few  are  the  precedents,  that  one  must  hesi- 
tate to  outline  a  plan  of  relief  which  from  the 
nature  of  the  case  expresses  faith  rather  than 
works.  But  to  falter  at  this  point  would  be  to 
shrink  from  the  assault  on  the  citadel  when  all 
but  that  is  won.  Hence  I  venture  to  submit 
for  your  criticism  the  merest  outline  of  a 

PLAN  FOR  DEVELOPING  SUPPORT  FOR  THE 
COUNTRY  CHURCH  AND  FOR  ORGANIZING  A 
COMPREHENSIVE  COUNTRY  CHURCH  PROPA- 
GANDA 

I.  Let  each  denomination  having  numerous 
rural  churches  segregate  into  a  department  its 
various  enterprises  on  behalf  of  such  churches. 
This  might  be  termed  the  Country  Church  De- 
partment, and  it  should  be  well  organized  into 
a  firm  administrative  unit.  The  field  of  each 
department  could  be  the  state,  or  it  might 
embrace  appropriate  groups  of  states.  There 
should  also  be  a  national  department,  repre- 
senting the  total  interest  of  the  denomination 
in  the  rural  church.  The  question  of  aid  to 
small  rural  churches  would  be  taken  out  of  the 
category  of  missions,  and  in  its  place  would 
loom  the  larger  question  of  the  relation  of  the 
whole    church   to    the   rural   problem.     Each 


124  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

denomination  would  have  to  organize  this 
department  in  consonance  with  its  pecuHar 
poHty;  but  the  main  purpose  of  organizing 
the  denominational  wealth  and  power  for 
service  to  the  rural  church  and  rural  community 
could  be  realized.  The  Presbyterian  church 
has  already  developed  a  nucleus  for  just  this 
sort  of  thing,  on  a  national  scale. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  very  definite 
plans  would  have  to  be  laid  for  financial  aid 
to  small  churches,  for  their  counsel,  guidance, 
and  encouragement,  for  the  training  and  supply 
of  ministers  qualified  to  serve  the  country 
parish,  and  for  deep  study  of  the  religious 
phases  of  the  problem  of  the  rural  community. 
These  plans  must  be  worked  out  through  study 
and  experience  and  in  harmony  with  denomi- 
national practices  and  aspirations. 

It  would  be  unfortunate  if  this  proposal 
should  be  construed  as  a  reflection  upon  the 
splendid  work  being  done  by  many  home  mis- 
sionary organizations.  But  the  idea  impHed 
in  the  phrase  ''home  missions"  seems  to  be 
no  longer  adequate  to  represent  the  problem 
which  the  church  confronts  in  the  country 
districts. 

2.  It  is  not  enough,  however,  that  organiza- 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         125 

tion  on  behalf  of  the  country  church  shall  be 
along  denominational  lines;  it  must  also  be 
interdenominational.  I  have  already  said  that 
the  federation  of  churches  is  a  fundamental 
article  in  a  country  church  program.  Federa- 
tion of  denominational  interests  on  behalf  of  the 
country  church  must  therefore  supplement  the 
activities  of  these  country  church  departments. 
Wherever  possible,  superfluous  churches  should 
be  eliminated,  and  all  existing  churches  united 
for  many  practical  co-operative  ends.  But 
church  federation  means  very  much  more  than 
eliminating  needless  church  societies.  The 
organized  work  of  church  federation  is  ambi- 
tious to  serve  as  an  organ  of  union  for  any  pur- 
pose common  to  all  the  churches.  The  second 
important  suggestion  is,  then,  that  the  Federa- 
tion of  Churches  be  utilized  in  order  to  secure 
definite  co-operation  of  the  various  denomina- 
tional country  church  departments.  This  could 
perhaps  best  be  done  through  a  country  church 
department  of  the  Federation. 

3.  Where  the  Federation  of  Churches  is  not 
yet  fully  organized,  and  indeed  perhaps  as  a 
movement  by  itself,  there  might  well  be  or- 
ganized a  Country  Church  Association,  to 
represent  the  interest  of  the  whole  church  in 


126  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

the  rural  problem.  It  should  include  theologi- 
cal schools,  representatives  of  the  rural  work 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and 
of  other  allies  of  the  church,  as  well  as  indi- 
vidual farmers,  clergymen,  teachers,  and  other 
rural  social  workers.  Chiefly  it  should  repre- 
sent the  various  country  church  departments 
in  union  for  a  common  service  to  the  country 
church.  There  is  at  present  a  ''New  England 
Country  Church  Association.'' 

In  this  way  the  present  strength  of  denomi- 
national interest  and  financial  support  would 
be  gained  for  a  definite  country  church  cam- 
paign, while  the  obvious  disadvantages  of 
exclusively  denominational  activity  would  be 
sunk  in  a  real  federation  for  the  one  object  of 
enlarging  the  function  and  rehabilitating  the 
power  of  the  church  in  the  rural  community. 

Thus  overlapping  could  be  eliminated,  each 
church  could  be  made  responsible  for  a  given  ter- 
ritory, and  no  area  would  be  left  unchurched. 
Self-support  would  be  encouraged  and  required, 
and  exterior  aid  would  be  given  more  nearly 
by  obligation,  not  so  much  by  charity.  Close 
study  of  the  country  church  problem  would 
be  undertaken.  Enthusiasm  for  the  rural 
church  in  both  country  and  city  would  be 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         127 

aroused  as  never  before.  Private  endow- 
ment for  single  churches  could  be  encouraged 
and  directed.  Large  endowments  for  country 
church  work  would  be  fostered.  A  clearing- 
house for  all  country  church  problems  would 
be  in  active  existence.  Denominational  in- 
terest would  be  gained,  but  sectarian  rivalry 
reduced.  A  comprehensive  campaign  on  be- 
half of  a  new  country  church  could  be  inaugu- 
rated. The  rural  church  could  present  a 
united  front,  develop  a  large  program,  assert 
its  leadership  among  the  forces  needed  to  solve 
the  rural  problem. 

VIII.  The  church  as  a  church  should  take  a 
far  larger  part  in  the  activities  of  the  community. 
The  precise  forms  of  activity  to  be  developed 
in  each  community  by  state,  school,  farmers' 
organization,  and  church  must  be  worked  out  in 
harmony  with  their  primary  functions,  with  as 
little  overlapping  as  possible,  and  in  a  spirit  of 
co-operative  service.  The  present  social  drift 
seems  to  be  very  clearly  toward  specialization 
of  function,  an  institutional  division  of  labor. 
At  the  same  time,  it  is  highly  desirable,  in  the 
rural  community  at  least,  that  existing  social 
institutions  shall  be  utilized  for  all  necessary 
purposes.     It    is    not    improbable    that    the 


128  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

efficiency  which  comes  from  speciahzation  of 
function  may  be  secured,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  chaos  which  results  from  a  multipHcity  of 
organizations  be  reduced  to  low  terms,  if 
each  rural  institution  shall  develop  such  sub- 
divisions of  its  work  as  are  consistent  with 
its  function.  Thus  the  church,  through  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  may  reach 
the  boys  and  young  men;  through  men's 
clubs  may  concentrate  the  attention  of  all  the 
men  of  the  neighborhood  upon  topics  of  large 
local  and  public  concern;  through  a  woman's 
committee  or  group  accomplish  what  the 
modern  woman's  club  essays  to  do  for  its 
members,  and  may  in  various  other  ways 
bring  about  the  organization,  directly  through 
the  church  itself,  of  a  group  of  social  activities 
now  utterly  neglected  or  imperfectly  developed. 
This  means  of  course  a  phase  of  institutional 
church  work. 

IX.  I  have  but  one  more  suggestion.  The 
church  must  share  in  a  large  campaign  for  rural 
progress.  Let  the  church  relate  itself  to  all 
good  movements  for  rural  betterment.  Let 
it  become  an  ally  and  leader  of  all  the  great 
agencies  that  promise  to  create  a  new  rural 
civilization,  to  maintain  the  status  of  the  rural 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  SUGGESTIONS         129 

people.  Let  it  not  think  anything  unclean. 
Let  it  not  hold  itself  aloof  from  Samaritan  or 
Gentile.  Let  it  reach  the  hearts  of  men 
through  their  daily  lives  and  daily  toil. 


THE  RURAL  CHURCH 

In  some  great  day 

The  country  church 

Will  find  its  voice 
And  it  will  say: 

^'I  stand  in  the  fields 
Where  the  wide  earth  yields 

Her  bounties  of  fruit  and  of  grain; 
Where  the  furrows  turn 
Till  the  plowshares  burn 

As  they  come  round  and  round  again; 
Where  the  workers  pray 
With  their  tools  all  day 

In  sunshine  and  shadow  and  rain. 

''And  I  bid  them  tell 
Of  the  crops  they  sell 

And  speak  of  the  work  they  have  done; 
I  speed  every  man 
In  his  hope  and  plan 

And  follow  his  day  with  the  sun ; 
And  grasses  and  trees, 
The  birds  and  the  bees 

I  know  and  I  feel  ev'ry  one. 


130  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

"And  out  of  it  all 
As  the  seasons  fall 

I  build  my  great  temple  alway ; 
I  point  to  the  skies 
But  my  footstone  lies 

In  commonplace  work  of  the  day; 
For  I  preach  the  worth 
Of  the  native  earth — 

To  love  and  to  work  is  to  pray." 

— Liberty  H.  Bailey 


^ 


V 
THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH 

The  country-side  is  calling,  calling  for  men. 
Vexing  problems  of  labor  and  of  life  disturb  our 
minds  in  country  as  in  city.  The  workers  of 
the  land  are  striving  to  make  a  better  use  of 
their  resources  of  soil  and  climate,  and  are 
seeking  both  larger  wealth  and  a  higher  wel- 
fare. But  the  striving  and  the  seeking  raise 
new  questions  of  great  public  concern.  Social 
institutions  have  developed  to  meet  these  new 
issues.  But  the  great  need  of  the  present  is 
leadership.  Only  men  can  vitalize  institu- 
tions. We  need  leaders  among  the  farmers 
themselves,  we  need  leaders  in  education, 
leaders  in  organization  and  co-operation.  So 
the  country  church  is  calling  for  men  of  God 
to  go  forth  to  war  against  all  the  powers  of 
evil  that  prey  upon  the  hearts  of  the  men  who 
live  upon  the  land,  as  well  as  upon  the  people 

palace  and  tenement. 

The  country  church  wants  men  of  vision, 
who  see  through  the  incidental,  the  small,  the 
transient,  to  the  fundamental,  the  large,  the 
131 


132  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

abiding  issues  that  the  countryman  must  face 
and  conquer. 

She  wants  practical  men,  who  seek  the 
mountain  top  by  the  obscure  and  steep  paths 
of  daily  toil  and  real  living,  men  who  can  bring 
things  to  pass,  secure  tangible  results. 

She  wants  original  men,  who  can  enter  a 
human  field  poorly  tilled,  much  grown  to  brush, 
some  of  it  of  diminished  fertility,  and  by  new 
methods  can  again  secure  a  harvest  that  will 
gladden  the  heart  of  the  great  Husbandman. 

She  wants  aggressive  men,  who  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  break  with  tradition,  who  fear  God  more 
than  prejudice,  who  regard  institutions  as  but 
a  means  to  an  end,  who  grow  frequent  crops 
of  new  ideas  and  dare  to  winnow  them  with 
the  flails  of  practical  trial. 

She  wants  trained  men,  who  come  to  their 
work  with  knowledge  and  with  power,  who 
have  thought  long  and  deeply  upon  the  prob- 
lems of  rural  life,  who  have  hammered  out 
a  plan  for  an  active  campaign  for  the  rural 
church. 

She  wants  men  with  enthusiasms,  whose 
energy  can  withstand  the  frosts  of  sloth,  of 
habit,  of  pettiness,  of  envy,  of  back-biting, 
and  whose  spirit  is  not  quenched  by  the  waters 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH      133 

of  adversity,  of  unrealized  hopes,  of  tottering 
schemes. 

She  wants  persistent  men,  who  will  stand  by 
their  task  amid  the  mysterious  calls  from  un- 
discovered lands,  the  siren  voices  of  ambition 
and  ease,  the  withering  storms  of  winters  of 
discontent. 

She  wants  constructive  men,  who  can  trans- 
mute visions  into  wood  and  stone,  dreams  into 
live  institutions,  hopes  into  fruitage. 

She  wants  heroic  men,  men  who  possess  a 
"tart,  cathartic  virtue,"  men  who  love  adven- 
ture and  difficulty,  men  who  can  work  alone 
with  God  and  suffer  no  sense  of  loneliness. 

THE  APPEALS  FROM  THE  RURAL  PARISH 

This  call  from  the  country  parish  is  one  that 
may  well  give  pause  to  men  who  seek  to  serve 
their  country  and  mankind.  There  are  numer- 
ous and  powerful  appeals  coming  up  from  the 
tillers  of  the  soil,  to  those  still  undecided  as  to 
the  life  task.  Let  us  name  some  of  these 
appeals : 

There  is  the  abiding  significance  of  the  great 
problem  of  agriculture  and  country  life.  The 
hungry  nations  are  to  be  fed,  the  world's 
nakedness  is  to  be  clothed,  God-given  fertility 


134  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

is  to  be  conserved.  The  forces  of  nature  are 
to  be  harnessed  by  science  and  driven  by 
trained  skill.  A  fundamental  human  industry 
is  to  be  fostered,  an  industry  that  supports 
gigantic  railways,  huge  manufactures,  immense 
commercial  enterprises,  stupendous  financial 
operations.  Scores  of  millions  of  American 
citizens  are  to  be  educated  for  life's  work, 
their  political  intelligence  and  integrity  are 
to  be  developed,  their  conditions  of  living  are 
to  be  improved,  their  virtue  is  to  be  guarded, 
their  ideals  are  to  be  enlarged.  These  people 
are  to  be  served  by  state  and  school,  by  the 
power  of  co-operative  enterprise,  by  church  and 
the  ministers  of  the  Christian  faith.  They  are 
to  continue  to  send  choice  youth  to  the  cities 
for  replenishment  and  for  leadership.  These 
millions  are  to  retain  a  place  in  advancing 
American  life  consistent  with  our  traditions 
and  our  hopes. 

The  need  of  the  church  in  all  these  great 
enterprises  of  rural  society  constitutes  an 
appeal.  Useless  the  wealth  wrung  from  the 
soil  unless  the  welfare  of  the  soil  worker  be 
maintained.  Valueless  the  material  elements 
of  human  life  unless  the  human  spirit  be  en- 
larged.    But  vanity  and  vexation  of  heart  are 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH      135 

our  farm  labors  and  plans  unless  the  spirit  of 
service  and  of  brotherhood  is  to  dominate. 
And  shall  we  partake  of  God's  bounty  without 
rendering  to  him  our  fealty  ?  Shall  the  guard- 
ians of  an  ancient  faith  permit  the  Saracens 
of  materialism,  of  worldliness,  of  love  of  money, 
of  adoration  of  power,  to  capture  the  citadels 
of  worship,  and  of  praise,  and  of  loving  loyalty 
to  all  that  is  divine  and  eternal  ?  These  issues 
are  real  and  they  are  vital.  Let  no  pressure 
of  appeal  from  city  slum,  from  lumber  camp 
or  mining  village,  from  immigrants'  need, 
from  bleeding,  impoverished  Armenia,  from 
the  newly  pulsing  China,  or  from  the  islands 
of  the  sea — heart-wringing  and  burning  as 
these  calls  may  be — let  none  of  these  things 
bhnd  us  to  the  slow-moving  but  irresistible 
tides  of  human  life  that  ebb  and  flow,  in  the 
homes  and  institutions  of  our  American  farm 
people. 

The  charms  of  the  pastor's  life  in  the  open 
country  constitute  a  call.  For  this  cause  many 
are  called  and  few  are  chosen.  But  for  that 
man  who  loves  the  open,  whose  heart  responds 
to  the  soft  music  of  meadow  and  field,  whose 
ear  is  attuned  to  the  rhythm  of  the  seasons, 
who  feels  the  romance  of  intelligent  care  of  soil 


136  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

and  plant  and  animal — to  that  man  the  rural 
parish  offers  rewards  beyond  all  price. 

Dear  uplands,  Chester's  favorable  fields, 
My  large  unjealous  loves,  many  yet  one — 
A  grave  good-morrow  to  your  Graces,  all. 
Fair  tilth  and  fruitful  seasons ! 

Lo,  how  still! 
The  midmorn  empties  you  of  men,  save  me; 
Speak  to  your  lover,  meadows !    None  can  hear. 
I  lie  as  hes  yon  placid  Brandy  wine. 
Holding  the  hills  and  heavens  in  my  heart 
For  contemplation. 

— Sidney  Lanier. 

The  opportunities  offered  by  the  country 
parish  for  breadth  of  culture  constitute  a  call 
not  usually  put  down  in  the  list  of  reasons  for 
being  a  country  clergyman.  One  does  not  need 
constant  access  to  great  libraries  in  order  to 
acquire  culture.  Culture  is  appreciation  of 
environment.  It  is  a  process  of  soul-ripening. 
Knowledge  is  merely  the  crude  material  upon 
which  culture  works.  Reading  is  only  one 
door  by  w^hich  culture  enters.  Close  observa- 
tion, meditation,  pondering  in  the  heart,  much 
thinking  are  the  favorite  tools  of  culture.  Do 
you  desire  time  to  read  in  peace?  Do  you 
wish  for  a  chance  to  weigh  and  meditate  ?  Do 
you  like  to  stand  close  to  men  at  work?    Do 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH       137 

you  want  to  know  the  secret  places  of  the  Most 
High  ?  Do  you  gain  wisdom  from  the  sermons 
preached  by  the  rocks,  joy  from  the  songs  of 
little  rivers,  peace  from  the  evening  hymns  that 
arise  from  meadow  and  woodland?  Then  do 
not  hesitate  to  seek  these  things  in  the  country 
parish.  From  your  rural  watch-tower  you, 
also,  may  observe  the  swift  march  of  affairs, 
keep  alive  to  great  movements,  see  the  drift 
of  great  human  tides.  You  may  in  the  country, 
also,  learn  to  appreciate  the  physical  and  spirit- 
ual environment  that  makes  for  the  welfare  of 
men  and  women,  secure  real  personal  growth, 
develop  sound  culture. 

It  is  worth  one's  while  to  be  in  touch  with 
leaders  of  thought  and  action.  The  stimulus 
that  comes  to  the  pastor  of  a  large  city  church 
from  such  associations  is  real  and  vital.  But 
for  the  man  who  can  detect  life's  veneer, 
who  loves  to  examine  the  fiber  of  character, 
who  knows  human  nature,  the  country  parish 
offers  ample  chance  for  interest  and  profit. 
For,  commonly,  rural  people  are  natural,  their 
native  instincts  are  strong,  their  tastes  are 
simple,  their  speech  is  direct.  To  him  who 
likes  this  sort  of  human  contact  the  country 
parish  calls. 


138  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

The  very  presence  of  the  difficulties  in  coun- 
try church  work  formulates  a  distinct  call  to 
men  who  like  to  conquer  circumstance.  The 
problem  of  prosperous  church  life  in  rural  com- 
munities is  not  an  easy  problem.  The  suc- 
cessful minister  in  those  communities  cannot 
enjoy  a  life  of  ease.  Vexation  of  spirit  may 
become  his  portion.  But  the  joy  of  overcom- 
ing an  untoward  situation  may  also  be  his. 
Some  men  will  be  attracted  to  the  country 
parish  just  because  it  is  a  hard  field. 

The  dearth  of  men  constitutes  a  call.  The 
fields  are  white  for  the  harvest.  Many  laborers 
present  themselves.  But  some  of  them  come 
out  merely  for  a  summer's  practice.  Some  have 
ancient  implements.  Some  do  not  know  wheat 
from  corn.  Relatively  few  deliberately  mean 
to  make  these  open  fields  their  life  scene,  and 
fewer  still  have  prepared  themselves  to  harvest 
the  crop  by  modern  methods.  Do  not  some 
of  you  see,  therefore,  a  rare  chance  for  distinc- 
tion? A  prayer  for  well-equipped  harvesters 
is  going  up  from  all  our  country-side,  and  we 
wait  impatiently  for  the  response,  "Here  am  I, 
send  me." 

To  those  men  who  have  the  pioneer  spirit 
there  comes  a  strong  appeal  from  the  rural 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH       139 

church.  For  here  is  a  chance  for  unique  work, 
something  different,  and  yet  supremely  useful 
as  well  as  rare.  Who  will  be  our  explorers,  to 
blaze  new  trails  by  which  other  men  may  find 
fresh  fields  of  influence  for  advancing  the  king- 
dom ?  Nowhere  more  fully  than  in  the  country 
can  a  clergyman  shepherd  his  flock  by  day  and 
by  night,  know  the  quality  of  their  meadows, 
guard  their  water  courses,  lead  into  new  and 
sweet  pastures.  The  splendid  opportunities 
for  leadership  in  the  country  parish  ought  to 
ring  in  the  hearts  of  young  men  of  power. 

The  timeliness  of  a  redirected  country 
church  work  constitutes  an  appeal.  There 
are  large  stirrings  in  all  rural  affairs.  The 
fields  are  alive  with  movements  for  better 
farming,  for  more  useful  education,  for  co- 
operation. As  never  before,  the  country  min- 
ister has  efficient  allies.  The  mechanism  of 
socialization  is  busy;  the  institutions  of  agri- 
cultural education  are  pulsing  with  life;  organ- 
izations are  multiplying  in  number  and  in 
power.  And  the  church  at  large  is  stirring. 
She  realizes  the  herculean  task  before  her. 
She  sees  the  signs  of  moral  unrest.  She  ob- 
serves that  the  notes  of  idealism  are  betimes 
deadened   by   the   ''wearisome   sound   of   the 


I40  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

scythe  of  time  and  the  trowel  of  trade."  The 
man  who  goes  to  the  country  parish  is  captain 
in  the  host  of  a  growing  army  that  seeks  to 
command  the  country-side,  as  well  as  to  cap- 
ture cities. 

The  final  and  the  supreme  call  from  the 
country  parish  comes  out  of  the  abiding  hunger 
of  men  and  women  for  religion — religion  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  daily  toil,  common  human 
need,  social  evolution,  justice,  and  fraternity. 
In  country  as  well  as  in  city,  many  men  and 
many  women  are  engaged — often  unwittingly 
or  even  unwillingly  engaged — in  the  sad  busi- 
ness of  living  outside  the  pale  of  religious  ideal- 
ism, seeking  to  explain  life  on  grounds  of 
expediency,  trying  to  find  easy  delight  for  the 
senses,  expending  toil  and  enduring  sweat  for 
that  which  is  not  bread.  But  all  of  them  know, 
in  their  best  moments,  that  underneath  are 
the  Everlasting  Arms.  Can  we,  then,  afford  to 
neglect  half  of  our  countrymen  in  our  efforts 
to  reach  men  effectively  with  the  new  evangel  ? 
Shall  all  these  rising  tides  of  life  in  our  rural 
regions  be  left  to  break  upon  the  futile  shores 
of  economic  gain  and  personal  pleasure  ?  Is  it 
a  small  and  mean  task  to  maintain  and  enlarge 
in  the  country  both  individual  and  community 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH       141 

ideals,  under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of 
the  religious  motive,  and  to  help  forty  millions 
of  rural  people  to  incarnate  those  ideals  in 
personal  and  family  life,  in  industrial  effort  and 
political  development,  and  in  all  social  rela- 
tionships ? 

A  GREAT  COUNTRY  MINISTER 

In  all  the  days  of  the  church  men  have  been 
found  who  illustrated  in  their  own  lives  the 
opportunities  that  lie  before  the  clergyman  in 
the  country  parish.  At  this  moment  there  are 
men,  in  all  parts  of  our  own  land,  who  see  this 
new  call  of  the  country  parish  and  are  respond- 
ing intelligently  and  gallantly.  But  one  name 
gives  us  entrance  into  such  a  wealth  of  inspira- 
tion and  suggestion  that  we  must  pause  to 
review  the  work  and  method  of  the  man.  You 
doubtless  know  the  story  full  well,  but  it  may 
not  be  omitted  here. 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
John  Frederick  Oberlin,  Bachelor  of  Arts  and 
Doctor  of  Philosophy  of  a  great  university, 
masterful  student  and  courageous  leader,  de- 
clared that  he  did  "not  wish  to  labor  in  some 
comfortable  pastoral  charge,"  where  he  could 
be  at  ease;  but  ''the  question  is,  Where  can  I 


142  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

be  most  useful?"  God  answered  his  prayer, 
and  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  this  man,  who 
might  have  had  a  powerful  church  in  a  great 
center,  entered  upon  his  life  task,  under  the 
most  forbidding  conditions,  in  the  Ban-de-la- 
Roche,  among  the  ''blue  Alsatian  mountains." 
It  was  a  region  with 

six  months  of  winter;  at  times  the  cold  of  the  shores 
of  the  Baltic;  a  wind  like  ice  sometimes  comes  down 
from  the  mountain  tops  .  .  .  .  ;  the  sick  and  dying 
are  to  be  visited  in  remote,  wild,  solitary  places  among 
the  forests. 

This  little  parish,  set  high  in  the  rugged 
Vosges,  consisted  of  not  over  one  hundred 
families  at  the  time  Oberlin  came  to  it.  The 
region  had  for  centuries  been  the  football  of 
war,  its  fields  had  been  harried,  its  manhood 
drained  for  martial  conflict. 

In  all  this  time  it  had  been  a  battle  for  sheer  exist- 
ence. In  the  short  summer  season  the  people  gathered 
barely  enough  food  to  sustain  their  impoverished  life 
through  the  long  winter,  only  to  renew  the  struggle 
when  the  snows  melted.  With  no  trades  and  without 
industries  other  than  the  rudest  agriculture,  and  with 
no  intelligent  cultivation  of  the  soil  for  this,  their 
roads  mere  by-paths,  their  streams  without  bridges, 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISPI       143 

their  food  scanty  and  coarse,  what  could  be  looked 
for  but  hopeless  and  hapless  lives  ?^ 

The  people  were  taxed  far  beyond  their  power 
to  pay.  Their  poverty  was  beyond  descrip- 
tion. They  were  practically  slaves.  They 
had  no  schools,  and  were  ignorant  to  a  degree. 
Physical  misery  and  moral  degradation  were 
wedded. 

Note  the  picture  of  the  same  parish  a  half- 
century  later,  near  the  close  of  this  historic 
pastorate.  The  hills  and  valleys  of  the  Ban- 
de-la-Roche  had  become  fertile  and  fruitful. 
Everywhere  there  were  evidences  of  a  prosperous 
agriculture.  Every  acre  was  well  tilled.  Each 
homestead  had  its  orchards  and  flower  gardens. 
Splendid  mountain  roads  and  substantial  bridges 
gave  access  to  the  great  world  beyond  the  hills. 
Schools  flourished,  schools  in  which  the  peda- 
gogy of  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  was  antedated; 
schools  in  which  were  taught  nature  study, 
agriculture,  civics,  aesthetics.  A  local  im- 
provement society  concerned  itself  with  de- 


^  For  the  facts  of  Oberlin's  life  and  the  quotations  here  given 
the  author  is  indebted  to  Professor  A.  F.  Beard  of  Oberlin  College, 
who  in  his  recent  Story  of  John  Frederick  Oberlin  has  written  a 
book  that  should  be  read  and  pondered  by  every  country  clergy- 
man in  America. 


144  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

veloping  the  beauty  about  home  and  farmstead. 
An  agricultural  club  flourished.  A  well-ordered 
system  of  irrigation  had  been  installed.  Peace 
and  plenty  reigned  supreme.  Thrift  marked 
the  labors  and  savings,  intelligence  directed 
the  industry  of  all.  Simple  but  charming 
houses  covered  a  beautiful  family  life.  Re- 
ligion served  to  bind  men  and  women  to  their 
fellows  and  to  their  God. 

The  recognized  genius  in  all  this  transforma- 
tion was  Pastor  Oberlin.  In  Oberlin's  closing 
years,  the  king  of  France  conferred  upon  him 
the  medal  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  for  his  many 
efforts  which  had  resulted  in  making  the  dis- 
trict ''flourishing  and  happy."  The  National 
Agricultural  Society  decreed  him  a  gold  medal 
for  ''prodigies  accomplished  in  silence  in 
this  almost  unknown  corner  of  the  Vosges, 
....  in  a  district  before  his  arrival  almost 
savage,"  and  into  which  he  had  brought  "the 
best  methods  of  agriculture  and  the  purest 
lights  of  civilization."  An  English  lady,  visit- 
ing the  region  in  1820,  writes:  "The  poor 
charm  me.  I  have  never  met  with  any  like 
them;  so  much  humility,  spirituality,  and  with 
manners  that  would  do  honor  to  a  court." 
It  was  all  Oberlin's  work. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUxXTRY  PARISH        I45 

By  what  miracle  was  this  transformation 
wrought?  By  preaching?  Yes;  Oberlin  never 
failed  to  prepare  his  sermons  with  the  greatest 
care.  He  was  a  reader  of  science,  of  history, 
of  philosophy.  Even  in  his  mountain  eyrie 
he  kept  in  touch  with  the  world's  thought. 
But  was  it  by  reading,  and  study,  and  faith- 
ful preaching  alone  that  the  change  came? 
Listen ! 

Oberlin  secured  the  first  schoolhouse  by 
promising  that  it  should  cost  the  people  nothing. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  paid  a  substantial  share 
of  the  cost  of  two  schoolhouses  out  of  the 
savings  of  a  salary  of  $200  a  year.  He  shoul- 
dered a  pick  and  led  the  work  of  building  the 
first  highway  and  bridging  the  mountain 
stream.  He  proved  that  horticulture  was 
practicable  in  the  region  by  himself  planting 
successful  orchards.  He  introduced  new  vari- 
eties and  new  crops.  He  organized  societies 
and  clubs.  He  taught  manners  and  morals. 
He  planned  and  directed  the  school  work  in 
every  detail.  In  the  beginning  all  of  these 
eftorts  were  opposed  most  vigorously.  Some 
even  tried  to  intimidate  him.  He  carried  every 
reform  against  severe  opposition.  He  helped 
the  people  in  spite  of  themselves.     But  in  all 


146  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

his  efforts  he  kept  the  rehgious  element  to  the 
fore.  All  things  were  to  be  done  for  God  as 
well  as  for  oneself.  He  himself,  while  prac- 
tical in  the  extreme,  was  also  spiritual  to  the 
verge  of  mysticism. 

Rural  parishes  in  America  that  present  the 
woeful  conditions  of  the  Ban-de-la-Roche  in 
1767  may  not  be  common,  though  of  that  let 
us  not  be  too  sure.  The  same  underground 
work  that  Oberlin  did  may  not  need  doing  by 
every  rural  clergyman.  Schools  are  busy  in 
every  parish.  Forces  of  socialization  and 
co-operation  are  at  work.  The  means  of  agri- 
cultural training  are  at  hand.  Yet  the  under- 
lying philosophy  of  Oberlin's  life  work  must  be 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  great  country 
parish  work  of  the  future.  Oberlin  believed 
in  the  unity  of  life,  the  marriage  of  labor  and 
living.  He  knew  that  social  justice,  intelligent 
toil,  happy  environment  are  bound  up  with  the 
growth  of  the  spirit.  They  act  and  react 
upon  one  another. 

More  than  a  century  ago,  in  an  obscure 
parish  among  the  mountains  of  Alsatia,  a  great 
man  labored  for  a  lifetime  as  a  country  min- 
ister. He  knew  all  the  souls  in  his  charge  to 
their  core.     He  loved  them  passionately.    He 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH       147 

refused  to  leave  them  for  greater  reward  and 
easier  work.  He  loved  their  fields  and  their 
mountains.  He  studied  their  problems.  He 
toiled  for  his  people  incessantly.  He  trans- 
formed their  industry  and  he  regenerated  their 
lives.  He  built  a  new  and  permanent  rural 
civilization  that  endures  to  this  day  unspoiled. 
The  parishes  about  the  little  village  of  Walders- 
bach,  nestled  among  the  Vosges  Mountains, 
thus  became  a  laboratory  in  which  the  call 
of  the  country  parish  met  a  deep  answer  of 
success  and  of  peace. 

A  PRESENT  CRISIS 

There  is  a  new  interest  in  American  country 
life.  The  love  of  the  out-of-doors  is  growing. 
Business  men  are  recognizing  afresh  the  funda- 
mental economic  character  of  the  agricultural 
industry.  The  solidarity  of  city  and  country 
is  seen  concretely.  The  unity  of  national  life 
is  found  to  consist  in  developing  both  urban 
and  rural  civilization.  Great  movements  are 
under  way,  designed  to  increase  the  yield  of 
the  soil,  to  put  agriculture  on  a  better  business 
basis,  to  educate  rural  youth,  to  secure  co- 
operative effort  among  farmers.  Is  the  church 
also  astir  in  rural  places  ?    The  country  church 


148  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

has  been  a  saving  salt  in  the  development  of 
our  great  farming  areas;  is  she  alive  today  to 
these  new  movements?  Is  she  leading  in  the 
campaign  for  rural  progress  ? 

The  most  ardent  friend  of  the  country  church 
must  give  a  sorrowful  "No"  in  reply  to  these 
questions.  While  many  individual  churches 
are  doing  splendid  work,  the  country  church 
as  an  institution  is  not  awake  to  her  task. 
She  has  not  realized  that  wonderful  changes 
are  taking  place.  Science  applied  to  farming 
is  working  a  revolution  in  rural  life  as  well 
as  in  rural  industry.  We  are  entering  upon 
a  new  era  in  American  agricultural  history. 
But  unless  the  church  arouses  herself,  her 
peculiar  work  among  country  folk  will  not  be 
done. 

The  present  situation  then  is  nothing  less 
than  critical.  It  is  vital  that  the  new  country 
life  movements  be  given  a  religious  content. 
The  leadership  of  the  country  church  is  impera- 
tive, if  the  new  streams  are  to  flow  in  the 
channels  of  idealism.  Let  the  church  assert 
its  leadership  at  once.  Let  it  set  the  pace  for 
rural  progress  and  determine  its  great  issues. 
There  is  no  time  to  be  lost.  The  floods  are 
rising.     The  day  is  at  hand. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH        149 
WHAT  SHALL  BE  DONE? 

What  shall  we  do  to  arouse  the  country 
church,  to  give  it  its  rightful  place  among  the 
forces  at  work  for  solving  the  rural  problem  ? 

We  must  ask  men  to  consecrate  themselves 
to  life-long  service  in  the  country  parish.  The 
country  church  needs  men  who  believe  that 
here  is  a  great  task,  worthy  of  high  devotion, 
thorough  preparation,  intelligent  study,  patient 
continuance  in  well-doing. 

We  must  root  out  the  idea  that  only  inferior 
men  can  find  a  permanent  work  in  the  country 
parish.  It  needs  our  strongest  and  best  men, 
particularly  in  these  critical  formative  days 
of  a  new  program  for  the  country  church.  The 
issues  at  stake  merit  the  leadership  of  great 
men.  Let  us  do  away  with  even  the  secret 
thought  that  a  brilliant  theologue  has  ''buried 
himself"  in  some  obscure  farming  community. 
It  is  his  own  fault  if  he  remain  buried.  The 
seeds  of  the  new  rural  religious  life  may  be 
sown  in  corruption,  in  dishonor,  in  weakness; 
but,  please  God,  they  shall  bear  fruit  in  incor- 
ruption,  in  glory,  and  in  power.  We  have  a 
right  to  ask  strong  men  to  put  their  hands  to 
this  plow  and  not  to  turn  back. 

We  must  go  out  to  the  men  now  toiling  in  the 


I50  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

rural  parishes,  with  a  message  of  cheer,  of  co- 
operation, of  encouragement.  They  are  a 
noble  band.  They  need  our  aid.  Let  us  help 
them  to  grip  the  new  sources  of  power,  to 
assume  a  new  leadership,  to  work  together  for 
larger  ends. 

We  must  appeal  to  the  seminaries,  and  other 
training  schools  for  preachers,  to  send  forth 
men  who  have  formed  a  well-grounded  ambi- 
tion to  explore  the  resources  of  this  great  field 
and  who  have  qualified  themselves  for  the 
task — ^who  are  well  armored  for  the  campaign. 

We  must  go  to  the  colleges,  and  appeal  to 
strong  young  men  who  want  hard  places,  who 
love  to  take  chances,  who  have  withal  the 
desire  to  serve  their  fellows  mightily.  We  must 
persuade  them  that  here  is  work  that  is  epoch- 
making,  a  man's  work,  work  worth  while. 

We  must  appeal  to  the  heroic  in  young  men. 
Let  us  not  try  to  show  that  the  country  parish 
is  a  garden  of  delight,  a  place  of  rest  and  ease. 
Rather  let  its  difficulties  and  puzzling  problems 
constitute  a  clarion-call  to  the  men  of  heroic 
mold.  Our  fathers  met  every  hard  issue  in 
the  heroic  spirit.  They  dared  the  wilds  of  an 
unexplored  continent  to  establish  a  new  king- 
dom of  God.     They  carried  the  banner  of  the 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH       151 

church  across  sea  and  land  and  planted  it 
among  savages.  They  kept  the  church  in  the 
van  of  the  army  of  conquest  that  has  subdued 
our  western  forest  and  prairie.  Have  their 
sons  poorer  vision,  smaller  courage,  weaker 
wills  ?  We  may  not  believe  it.  But  we  must 
show  them  that  here  is  really  a  man's  work, 
that  something  vital  is  at  stake.  We  must 
appeal  to  high  motives,  expect  large  sacrifices. 
The  critical  need  just  now  is  for  a  few  strong 
men  of  large  power  to  get  hold  of  this  country 
church  question  in  a  virile  way.  It  is  the  time 
for  leadership.  We  need  a  score  of  Oberlins  to 
point  the  way  by  actually  working  out  the 
problem  on  the  field.  It  is  well  enough  to 
discuss  the  problem  in  its  theoretical  aspects. 
It  is  desirable  to  organize  large  movements  on 
behalf  of  the  rural  church.  But  more  than  all 
else  just  now,  we  need  a  few  men  to  achieve 
great  results  in  the  rural  parish,  to  re-establish 
the  leadership  of  the  church.  No  organization 
can  do  it.  No  layman  can  do  it.  No  educa- 
tional institution  can  do  it.  A  preacher  must 
do  it — do  it  in  spite  of  small  salary,  isolation, 
conservatism,  restricted  field,  over  churching, 
or  any  other  devil  that  shows  its  face.  The 
call  is  imperative.     Shall  we  be  denied  the  men  ? 


152  CHURCH  AND  RURAL  PROBLEM 

While  we  must  demand  men,  single-handed 
and  alone,  to  meet  this  call  of  the  country 
parish,  there  are  two  powerful  allies  that  we 
may  ask  to  our  aid.  There  is  always  stimulus 
in  a  common  purpose.  Is  not  the  time  ripe 
for  a  new  ^' rural  band" — a  group  of  half  a 
dozen  men  from  the  seminary,  who  find  ad- 
jacent parishes  in  a  rural  region,  and  there, 
quietly,  co-operatively,  persistently,  grimly, 
study  the  situation,  take  leadership  in  all  com- 
munity life,  incite  the  aid  of  school  and  Grange, 
stir  lay  support,  carry  on  a  great  campaign  for 
better  individual  and  community  life,  and  do 
all  under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of  the 
rehgious  motive?  A  plan  of  this  sort,  care- 
fully considered,  discreetly  managed,  patiently 
developed,  would  form  the  nucleus  for  a  new 
country  church.  It  needs  doing.  It  can  be 
done.     Are  there  men  who  will  do  it  ? 

The  time  is  ripe  also  for  an  organized  move- 
ment on  behalf  of  the  country  parish,  that  shall 
give  dignity  and  direction  to  the  efforts  of 
solitary  workers.  The  country  parish  is  a 
peculiar  field.  New  methods  are  needed.  Men 
must  be  aroused  from  lethargy.  A  powerful 
co-operative  enterprise  must  set  standards, 
educate  men,  co-ordinate  effort. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  PARISH       153 

The  country  church  is  indeed  calling  for  men. 
The  prosperous  churches  in  rich  farming  regions 
need  strong  leaders  to  direct  the  forces  of  prog- 
ress and  to  lead  men  to  the  waters  of  life. 
The  little  white  meeting-house  on  the  aban- 
doned New  England  hillside  holds  out  its  arms 
in  mute  appeal  for  men  to  bring  new  hf e.  From 
the  cotton  fields  and  mountains  of  the  south- 
land, from  the  prairies  of  the  central  valleys, 
from  the  transformed  deserts  of  the  West, 
comes  this  call  for  men  to  serve  the  country 
parish. 

Let  not  our  eyes  be  blind  to  these  deep  needs 
of  our  rural  life,  nor  our  ears  deaf  to  the  call  of 
the  country  parish.  The  time  for  a  great  work 
is  at  hand.  The  country  church  is  facing  a 
*^ present  crisis";  therefore  let  us  remember 
that 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties;  Time 

makes  ancient  good  uncouth ; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward, 

who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth; 
Lo,  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires !    We 

ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 
Launch  our  Mayflower,  and  steer  boldly 

through  the  desperate  winter  sea. 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with 

the  Past's  blood-rusted  key. 


Princeton 


Theological  Seminan;  Libraries 


1 1012  01233  7939 


Date  Due 


